This debate is a perfect illustration for why I attack Austrianism. Some Objectivists maintain that Austrian econ is compatible with Rand's philosophy. Well, here we have a case of a person, @PunishedZulu, who (somewhat) genuinely attempts to infuse Austrianism with Objectivism. But notice what happens here. Instead of Austrianism slotting under Objectivist ethics in the narrow scope of economics, Zulu is *subordinating* Objectivism under Austrianist philosophy. This is why I keep arguing that Austrianism is not merely economics; it is a worldview. At the heart of this worldview is the idea of "scarcity." This is a post-Kantian, collectivist, materialist, anti-production, primacy of consciousness idea that negates the fundamental human problem of how to survive. It starts by assuming a static quantities premise; i.e., "the goods are here." But, unlike a paradise of unlimited goods, these proponents say, in real life there are only so many goods yet fewer people to have them. So other people's wishes to command the scarce goods "come under conflict" with other people's wishes, and the way to resolve this conflict is to assign boundaries to these goods so we can all get along with each other. Rand's philosophy takes a completely different approach. She starts with the individual and asks: what does man need in order to survive, i.e., in order to sustain himself? What she observes is that all living organisms live by a process of self-sustaining action. They act to gain values from their surroundings to maintain their lives. As you can see, there are already two main differences to these approaches: Rand says that the fundamental problem is that of survival, and that values, to be gained, must be acquired through action. By contrast, Austrianism ignores the problem of survival and treats values/goods as if they are already here, with the only problem being how to distribute them. Note the definition that Zulu offers for property. He defines property rights by their consequence and through negation (both logical errors). He says that ownership is the right to exclude because he starts from the collectivist premise of people claiming their whims on static quantities. This is absurd if you actually looks at reality. Simple examples of restaurant owners who invite people into their property or a person lending his book to a friend demonstrate that property is not always *literally* excluded from the use of others. Rand's definition of property is correct because she doesn't start from the false scarcity premise. Man, I believe she writes this explicitly, starts with NOTHING. Neither abundance nor scarcity, which is a false dichotomy. He starts with *zero* values and must generate action to gain values from the outside world. How does he know though which values are indeed values? How does he know how to gain values? Knowledge is not automatic, so he must think to guide his actions. This, together with action, is the primary problem of survival, which are both problems that Austrianism glosses over (because fundamentally it rejects consciousness—but that's for another time). Thus Rand reaches the definition of property, which is the right to use or dispose of earned things according to one's judgment. Note, it is the right to use—not the right to exclude. "Use" presupposes a mind that decides how to use. You can use the object yourself or you can let someone else use it. Hence "exclusion" is not essential to the concept. It can be one result of how you decide to use an object, but not more than that. The essential characteristic of property is that you earn it and get to decide how to use it. The idea of exclusion and scarcity, however, dispenses with the mind, and reduces the issue of property to physical distribution, as if humans are nothing but animals (or 5-year-olds) fighting over the same finite resources. Now because "use" is mind-dependent, the issue of property in a social context is not how to draw boundaries around goods, but whether or not *one's consent of usage is respected by others*. If you physically take an object that's mine, that's not theft if I gave you my consent to use it. It is only theft if I *did not* give you my consent. The implementation of property rights is an epistemological problem, not a metaphysical one. Thus physical possession cannot be the basis of property rights (this is concrete-bound and dumb, actually, with all due respect). Since this is already long, I'll offer only a brief comment on IP. One does not have IP in a non-market context. If someone copies your creation and you both live in a small, isolated community, this does not harm your ability to survive. But markets are a different story. In a market context we don't self-subsist, we specialize. Specialized production becomes the method of human survival in markets. This means that we create *in order to sell our creation on the market*. If someone physically takes our creation or copies it without our consent, he has robbed our specialized advantage, robbed our time and effort, and robbed our final product. To allow copying of property of any kind—physical or intellectual—without the creator's consent, is to advocate for the destruction of markets. I will end here, but at some point I will flesh out this argument in more detail.