In Nobel Prize Winning Economist Explains How IP Rights Are Part Of The Globalization Problem, techdirt's Mike Masnick (who is heroically great on IP) notes the "fascinating speech by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz on Making Globalization Work. We've written about Stiglitz in the past, for his explanation of how patents often do more harm than good economically."

But not so fast. Is Stiglitz really that good on IP? As I noted in Patents and Utilitarian Thinking Redux: Stiglitz on using Prizes to Stimulate Innovation, Stiglitz has advocated replacing the patent system with a system for "awarding prizes"--presumably taxpayer funded--for innovations and inventions. In Scrooge and intellectual property rights, Stiglitz endorses a "medical prize fund" that "would give large rewards for cures or vaccines for diseases," which "prizes could be funded by governments in advanced industrial countries." Two cheers for capitalism! Or is that the other one?

As I've probably said before, if society values the innovation/invention/discovery that much it will be quite able to arrange and fund a prize of its own volition (without taxation). I doubt there'd be much persuasion necessary for all disease X sufferers (their friends and those who worry they might get it) to pledge $N to whoever finds a cure.

Similarly, all fans of movie M would no doubt be happy to pledge $X to whoever produces a decent sequel.

For that matter, all readers of Against Monopoly would probably be happy to pledge a penny for another article to be published.

We just need the enabling mechanism. It is not a matter of state compulsion, whether by taxation or monopolistic privileges.