Posted by
Resa on Monday, September 15, 2008 2:49:59 PM
As a patent attorney,
I have the privilege of working with inventors and entrepreneurs – creative
people who come up with new ideas that most of us cannot even imagine -- and who
risk their resources to bring those new ideas to market. Manufacturers,
investors, lenders, and consumers often cannot understand at first what the new
idea is, how it will work, or the benefits it will bring.
We reap tremendous
benefits from the contributions of these innovators, both as we consume their
products and services and as we are employed in their businesses. Just imagine
a few of the many beneficial innovations we have seen in only the past few
years. Cars are much safer while requiring far fewer resources to produce and
operate than in the past. Roads are safer, and the paving process is much more
efficient and less polluting. We have cell phones that enable us to make sure
our children and parents are alright even when they are traveling or that allow
us to call for help from almost anywhere. We have inexpensive GPS devices that
tell us how to get where we want to go. We have computers and the Internet,
allowing us to communicate, to have vast amounts of information at our
fingertips, and to produce audio and visual products we never even imagined back
in the days of mimeographs and carbon paper and party telephone lines. We have
many new medical technologies, including new cures for diseases and new
artificial knees and hips that allow us to remain active and pain-free instead
of spending years in wheelchairs. Most of us take these numerous innovations
for granted as being a natural part of life. We shouldn’t.
We
need to appreciate the struggles innovators go through in order to make their
dreams a reality, the risks they take, and the many hurdles and odds they have
to overcome. If we want them to continue to take those risks and struggle to
overcome those odds, we need private property rights, the rule of law, a patent
system, and a tax system that allow them to reap the rewards when they succeed.
If,
instead, we take the innovators for granted and adopt policies that punish
rather than reward them, then those innovations will slow or even cease. We may
even slide backwards as our resources are depleted and we have not created new
technologies to replace them.
Unfortunately, most politicians and most voters do not understand this. They
think we can tax the successful innovators and entrepreneurs and distribute the
fruits of their labor to others without losing future innovations. They are
wrong.
We
don’t see that such policies will cause the potential innovator or entrepreneur
to decide to go on vacation and relax rather than pursue his creative dreams.
Why should he take the risks when there are no rewards?
We
don’t see the innovations he would have produced that would have saved lives,
that would have lifted many people out of poverty, or that would have made the
environment cleaner but that will never come into existence.
Since
we can’t see what has not yet been produced, we also may make the mistake of
voting for the politician who establishes the public policies that burden the
entrepreneurs and prevent those innovations from coming into existence, because
those politicians claim to “feel our pain” and to care for poor people or others
who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances. The trouble is that those
policies result in more poverty and more misery! If only we could see!
See also: http://www.JeffersonReview.com