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to Unedited Philosophy Quotes and Ramblings about Intequinism.
RESEARCH PROPOSAL ABOUT
INTEQUITY
Title: Ideas to New Capital or New
Capital of Ideas or New Capital from Ideas or Honesty,
logic, creativity and Intequity.
Index
Contents
2.1.1
Intellectual Property, Moral,
Legal and International Dilemmas. Edited
by Adam D. Moore
2.1.2
A History of Money from Ancient
Times to the Present Day – Glyn Davies
2.2.1
1966 - Creativity and Academic
Achievement – Joseph C. Bentley
2.2.2
1973 Ability and Creativity in
Mathematics – Lewis R Aiken, Jr.
2.2.3
1973 Honesty and the Creative
Process – Charlotte L. Doyle
2.2.4
1981 Pluralism and
Truth in Religion – Karl Jaspers on Existential Truth
2.2.5
1993 Towards A Theory Of
Organizational Creativity Woodman_Sawyer_Griffin
2.2.6
2002 Rethinking
Truth – Phillip Higgs and Jane
Smith
2.2.7
2009 Theories of Creativity –
Carlisle Bergquist
2.2.8
The Sources of Innovation – Eric
von Hippel
2.3.1
The EUROPEAN RESEARCH UNIVERSITY -
An Historical Parenthesis?
2.3.2
2008
AcademicCooperationWithAfrica - Eds Schamp Eike W.
and Schmid Stefan
2.4.1
Brands and Branding – Clifton Rita
with others – Second Edition.
2.4.2
Capital Ideas Evolving – Peter L.
Bernstein ISBN 978-0-471-73173-3 (cloth)
2.4.3
Democratizing Innovation – Eric
von Hippel
2.4.4
2002 From Ideas to
Assets – Investing Wisely in Intellectual Property
Edited by Bruce Berman
2.5.1
2005 Intangible
Assets – Valuation and Economic Benefit – Jeffrey
A. Cohen
4.
Planned structure and bibliography
of each chapter
4.1
Chapter 1: Research Proposal
4.2
Chapter 2: Philosophy
and historical development of intellectual property
and ideas.
4.4 Chapter 4: Developing Ideas
4.6 Chapter 6: Accounting and
Revenue considerations.
4.8 Chapter 8: Recollection of
hermeneutics
Natural resources, ideas, labour and capital
are the four most important ingredients of a successful
changing economy. Equitable compensation for contributions
of these four factors contributes to sustainability
without unpleasant upheavals. This dissertation deals with
ideas.
Entrepreneurship is not normally a factor of
production in South Africa. ‘The field of entrepreneurship
in South Africa has certain unique although limiting
characteristics, including an unconvincing enabling
environment, a weak entrepreneurial culture and an
emergent, and therefore limited, body of knowledge
surrounding the topic of entrepreneurship. Consequently,
entrepreneurship in South Africa does not hold a strong
position in terms of entrepreneurial activity and, in
fact, is generally approached with a degree of scepticism.
At the same time, Maas (GEM) (Maas & Herrington 2006:
12) indicate categorically that an increase in
entrepreneurial activity is highly dependent on effective
entrepreneurship education. This study confirmed the fact
that education per
se may increase the current Total Entrepreneurial
Activity rate of 5.29% in South Africa, as compared with
14.8% in other developing countries’ (Antonites
&
Wordsworth, 2009, p. 69)
A free market economy philosophy which is
educated in South Africa which includes the idea of
entrepreneurship, is reality in South Africa, but markets
are not free and free competition does not exist. Free
markets are a prerequisite for entrepreneurship to be
effective because entrepreneurial opportunities exist
because entrepreneurs supply better value for money
products and services than the ones before. If this
possibility does not exist it excludes the entrepreneurial
idea in reality. ‘The search for “truth’(sic) or “truthful
knowledge” is the overriding goal of science. Whereas in
everyday life we search for knowledge that will help us
cope better with the challenges and demands of each day (a
very pragmatic interest), the aim of science is to
generate truthful (valid and reliable) descriptions, model
and theories of the world. I have referred elsewhere to
this as the epistemic
interest of science (Mouton, 1996, Chapter 7).
“Epistemic” is derived from episteme, the
Greek word for “truthful knowledge”. Although it is, of
course, not possible to produce scientific results that
are infallible and “absolutely” true for all times and
contexts, we are motivated, as scientists, to constantly
strive for the most truthful and the most valid results.”’(Mouton,
2001,
p. 138)
After ideas have been generated the capital
and currency to develop the ideas are created or advanced
to fund the development of the ideas. The development
process, which is funded by capital, supplies work. The labour
brings the ideas and natural resources together to form
assets. Speedy implementation of new ideas, with
subsequent competence benefits to the economy, is
important to be competitive and to supply work
opportunities. Effective implementation of ideas can
secure South African ideas for the benefit of South
African citizens first and foremost. A sustainable system
of compensation for idea generation motivates citizens to
be creative in an economy. Simon Anholt discusses branding
of nations in the book Brands and Branding. He wrote:
‘What really makes a difference is when a critical mass of
the business and organisations in a place becomes
dedicated to the development of new things: new policies,
new laws, new products and services, new business, new
buildings, new art, new science, new intellectual
property.’ (Clifton, et
al., 2009, p. 209) Without ideas there would not
have been any of the products and inventions which make
our lives easier and distinguish our species from other
species.
Trademarks and brands save time during the
purchase decisions of consumers due to trust (Clifton, et al., 2009, p. 22)
in the trademark and brand. Trusted trademarks and brands
usually offer value for money products and good quality
versus cost ratios. Warren Buffet told a group of
investors in Germany that brands are the most important
factor in deciding where to invest.(Clifton, et al., 2009, p. 5)
It confirms my opinion that Intequity© is a strategic
issue for a country. 20 Years ago the intangible part of
the combined market capitalisation of Standard &
Poor’s companies were 30%. In recent years it has risen to
80%. Globally brands are estimated to account for
approximately one-third of all wealth(Clifton, et al., 2009, p. 5).
The value of Intellectual Property (‘IP’) which does not
appear on balance sheets in all circumstances is part of
this difference. Trademarks
and brands are referred to with words like brand equity
and the currency of a company (Clifton, et al., 2009).
I refer to the accredited value of IP as Intequity©.
Intequity is a term which is used for the value of IP
assets which does not appear currently on balance sheets.
In South Africa currently place names are
changing and the marketing value of these names has to be
built up anew. In other countries for example France a
marketing value can be attached to place names for example
to Champagne (Rangnekar,
2009, pp. 537-539).’The United States, however, does not accept
the idea that champagne is an indication of origin and
there term “champagne” may be used for any sparkling wine,
whatever its provenance. But this has its dangers. Belgian
customs authorities confiscated and destroyed some
American champagne as being counterfeit when it passes
through a Belgian harbour...A Rottweiler from time to time
bites his master.’(Harms,
A
Few Negative Trends in the Field of Intellectual Property,
2009, p. 542)
Intellectual Property is an integral part of
the formal and informal business sectors and plays an
integral part in decision making when investors decide
where to invest their savings and when investment managers
decide on ways to utilise investors’ funds.
Property rights to, and ownership of IP is an
issue with diverse views. Currently the World Intellectual
Property Organisation (‘WIPO’) is spreading their views
and policy about ownership through a network of countries
with cross-border agreements. The organisation has its
head office in Switzerland. The name WIPO explains what
their leadership’s aspirations are of spreading the WIPO
philosophy.
Intellectual is defined as ‘1. of or relating to the intellect, as opposed to
the emotions.’(Makins,
et al., 1994, p. 803) Intellectual Property is defined as ‘an
intangible asset, such as a copyright or patent.’ (Makins, et al.,
1994, p. 803)
IP practices are developing in South Africa
and the legality of ownership of IP is developing. Law
practitioners have varying opinions about the nature of
IP. Particularly, the borders within which rights to IP
operate are not clear. Securing financial gain from the
generation of ideas is problematic and uncertain.
Availability of capital for development during the early
stage of ideas is very scarce. This situation exists while
new capital is generated world-wide to develop ideas. This
capital funds the living expenses of many people as
payment for development work done by them. It often
happens that good ideas are not used, shortly after it was
generated because of a lack of knowledge and/or capital.
The ideas are then sometimes lost to other countries.
Although ideas are significant in a successful economy,
currently idea generation does not receive due credit and
people are not compensated for ideas even though the ideas
contribute to wide welfare. The generators of ideas are
often not included in the development process. How often
do you hear the statements ‘It is only an idea’ or
‘Everybody has ideas’. This situation leads to a
descending human culture with subsequent lower Intequity
values.
‘The Innovation Fund
is mandated to promote
technological innovation through
investing in late stage research and development,
Intellectual Property protection and commercialisation of
novel and inventive South African technologies.” (Innovation Fund) The Innovation Fund
is controlled by the National Research Foundation (‘NRF’).
A ‘funding gap’ exists in the development of
ideas, from the idea generation phase until after the
proof-of-idea phase. I will call it the Info Stage. Most
venture capital financing takes place after the
proof-of-idea period. In the current Information Age it is
crucial to have the necessary information and knowledge to
ethically and successfully make funding decisions. The
Info Stage of a project is one of the most important
phases, because, it is during this phase, which the
information is gathered, which determines, whether an
investment should be made to further an idea. The length
of the period, during which information is gathered, and
the ownership of the IP, following the idea, lost or
established, is influenced a lot with capital. Capital
influences research and the availability of natural
resources and labour. If no capital is used during the
Info Stage, an idea is filtered by people’s discussions in
general. The information becomes scattered amongst many
people in such a case. It is a lengthy uncompetitive
process and ownership of IP, following the idea, is lost
when no capital or proactive action influences the Info
Stage. Small and Medium Enterprises and creative people,
often, do not have the capital to finance research during
the Info Stage of their ideas.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange and Alt X
supply only capital where a profit history exist, thus
there is no capital available for developing ideas. The
financing the Info Stage of projects receives currently in
South Africa, is mainly through formal research, to which
many people with good ideas do not have access or
knowledge about.
The way a culture perceives innovation
determines innovation and capital growth. If innovation is
of low priority, the culture will not be competitive in a
free market, which operates without legal infringements.
If innovation is motivated by a culture the culture will
be greater, because technology is currently evolving.
Economic creativity is not protected against thievery in
South Africa. South Africa has not been dependant on
creativity, like the first world, partly because of
historical dependence on export of raw materials.
Ideas are currently common property in the
USA(Moore,
1997, p. 3). If copyrights are territorial
it is possible for other countries to harvest ideas in
South Africa and then develop it legally because they are
better organized and has capital available more readily.
South Africa’s developmental process of ideas does not
compete effectively with some other countries and
therefore South Africa loose potential income. ‘Copyright
is territorial.’(Harms,
A Few Negative Trends in the Field of Intellectual
Property, 2009, p. 540) According to the e-mail from Prof Tana
Pistorius on January 19, 2010 at 15h02 copyrights are not
territorial.
There are no laws which prohibit the transfer
of ideas amongst countries. Copyright which automatically
settles on entities in a big part of the world except for
example the USA is a right which is defensible with civil
law procedures after paying high costs. Civil law
procedures are out of reach of most people because of cost
factors. If a government protects copyright directly with
criminal procedures instead of only civil procedures it
could be argued that it is an advancement of human rights.
‘For the sake of perspective: Microsoft lodges about 3 000
patent applications annually; IBM earns more than US $1
billion in patent royalties per annum; and according to
one estimate more than 50 per cent of the foreign earnings
of the United States is by way of IP.’(Harms, A Few
Negative Trends in the Field of Intellectual Property,
2009, p. 543). There is a possibility
that copyrights which are registered and developed in the
USA and Trade Secrets kept there, actually originated
elsewhere in a country where automatic copyright settles.
This is clearly a situation which can cause conflict
between the USA and another part of the world. It depends
on the methods used to gather information. If Intelligence
agencies gather information on new ideas by way of
infringing on human rights for example privacy, a case can
be made to declare the IP rights void. ‘South African law
and the common law can best be illustrated with reference
to passing off and the protection of confidential
information: South African law, like the civil law,
recognises a general delict of unfair competition while
the English common law has no general unfair competition
tort. However, the approach in South Africa to unfair
competition is heavily influenced by common law
precedents.²¹...The rights usually in issue are freedom of
expression, the right to privacy and the right to
property.²⁹’(Harms,
The
Role of the Judiciary in the Enforcement of Intellectual
Property Rights: Intellectual Property Litigation under
the Common Law System with Special Emphasis on the
Experience in South Africa, 2004, p. 484)(Harms, The Role
of the Judiciary in the Enforcement of Intellectual
Property Rights: Intellectual Property Litigation under
the Common Law System with Special Emphasis on the
Experience in South Africa, 2004, p. 484)
‘My company, Intellectual Ventures, is
misunderstood. We have been reviled as a patent troll—a
renegade outfit that buys up patents and then uses them to
hold up innocent companies. What we’re really trying to do
is create a capital market for inventions akin to the
venture capital market that supports start-ups and the
private equity market that revitalizes inefficient
companies. Our goal is to make applied research a
profitable activity that attracts vastly more private
investment than it does today so that the number of
inventions generated soars...Our 650 employees include
scientists and engineers, patent analysts and attorneys,
finance experts, and licensing sales agents. To raise
capital, we have an investor relation team. Our topic
generation teams continually study trends in technology
development and new discoveries in science to try to
identify the best opportunities for investment. Their
conclusions guide three distinct groups. The first is our
in-house invention effort, which involves 30 staff
inventors (myself included) and a roster of more than 100
extraordinary consulting inventors who work part-time for
us. The second is our external inventor network of more
than 1 000 inventors in seven countries. The third is our
acquisitions group, which buys existing patents or stakes
in them.’(Myhrvold,
2010,
pp. 41,47)
Corporate citizenship refers to the
responsibilities which parties have due to their
involvement in the economy. It refers first and foremost
to a party’s citizenship of a country in current law. IP
and particularly the development of ideas is a grey
developing area in which corporate citizens have to use
constraint not to abuse powerful positions to the
disadvantage of other citizens. This is a consequence of
the problem which is created by global groups which
operate over borders. If a foreign company employs local
citizens, the ideas which were generated by the citizens
and which are owned by the foreign company can be used
legally to disenfranchise the fellow citizens of the
country. If exorbitant prices are asked for the products,
legally, it can have a negative influence on the people of
the country. If a local citizen is involved with practices
which disadvantage the other local citizens because he is
responsible to the owners of the foreign company due to
his employment, there is a Rubicon line which can be
crossed. If this line is crossed treason can be involved
because of a citizen’s first and foremost responsibility
to his fellow citizens according to current nationalistic
law principles. Corporate responsibility therefore creates
a paradoxical situation of uncertain citizenship in some
circumstances. It is ironic but in some cases empires were
built as a result of favoring foreign connections to local
ones. ‘Countries such as the UK, France, China and the
Netherlands, which have had empires in the past, may still
be enjoying the benefits of decades or centuries of busy
cultural, political, social and commercial transactions
with far-flung countries, even if the unpleasant military
and political details are long consigned to the history
books.’(Clifton,
et
al., 2009, p. 212)
It can be argued in countries where freedom
of speech is allowed that nationalism has no place in a
moral globalized business world because it is moral to
side with a person, with similar ethics and belief, in
another country, rather than with a fellow citizen with
opposing ethics. Copious profit from trading ,however, can then become
relevant to cancel the culture of siding with foreign
morality. “It is not where we are or where we come from
that is important, but what we care about. According to
Henley Centre research, 60% of Britons have less in common
with their neighbors than the folk who share their
hobbies. Online, it is easy for people to track down
groups across the world to which they can belong, to
relate to like minds and like-minded brands on a specific
dimension or passion.”(Clifton, et
al., 2009, p. 225) In South Africa the 60% in the above quote
is certainly different because of different demographics.
This situation complicates the nationalist law principle
in a global community with frequent interactions between
people from different countries and consequential
transference of ideas.
In order for a company or country to be
competitive in a global economy the speedy development of
ideas which were generated in the company or country is
important. Currently in South Africa such a speedy
development process does not exist. A speedy coordinated
development process becomes more crucial with a global
communication system because ideas spread faster.
Chronologic sequences are normally longer than logic
sequences because of disinformation and a lack of
transparency which render an economy less competitive in
developing ideas. Where ideas are not developed
consciously as fast as possible in a competitive world
economy or secured for later use, the creator of the idea
and his surrounds benefit less.
Trademarks and brands influence consumers,
due to image considerations. When a consumer pay more for
a cap with a Nike trademark than for a cap without a
trademark from the same street vender it is a logical
assumption to make that the decision to buy the cap with
the Nike trademark was because of the image, which was
created by Nike’s advertising campaigns. The stitching and
cloth quality of the two caps can be assumed to be not
very different. Roughly 10% of world trade takes place in
counterfeit products (Clifton, et
al., 2009). The percentage trade in
counterfeit ideas is much higher because idea generation
is not protected by law. Trademarks and brands can have a
negative effect on individuals when owners ask exorbitant
prices because of monopolies. The good quality versus cost
ratio then stops and eventually leads to the demise of the
brand.
According to the Times magazine there is an
inverse relation between logic and memory. Idea generation
or creativity is labour of minds, which is partly a result
of logic, which in turn is partly a result of honesty. To
stay honest is difficult and takes a lot of energy.
Creativity is often not seen as productivity which should
be compensated. Christianity portrays honesty as a
singular godly attribute and therefore many shun it in
favour of disinformation and an easier short term route.
Some people then sin or deceive deliberately because they
think the sin will free them from this godthought which is
portrayed in Christianity. The thought culminates at
Revelation 19:11. The fear which is caused by the religion
leads to an uncompetitive economy because creativity is
discouraged and lost because deceit leads to illogical
thoughts, which are not based on reality but rather on
thoughts and memory to conceal. It also leads to a
digression of people and society in general. Communication
then digresses to a stage where information is not
effectively transferred. Most people want to be informed
investors. The transfer of meaningful information is
central to communication. Most of us want to base our
investment decisions on truth and reality or in other
words on what actually happens. To lead with
disinformation gives an advantage but the longer term
result of deceit is the loss of logic abilities and
creativity because capacity is used for storage of
disinformation, which under truthful circumstances would
not have been necessary to store. There is a time
difference between actual order and logical order of
events. The reason of this difference can be partly
explained by the results of disinformation, which changes
the timeframe in which logical sequences take place. Lies
bend time. People who try to stay honest are logically
capable of generating most useful ideas, because their
brains are not storing memories of unreal events, they
made up, which they want to remember. These people
sometimes do not mix in the circles where capital is
available to develop ideas and they do not normally
develop the ideas they generated. The consequence is that
many originators of ideas do not share sufficiently in the
benefits the ideas bring forth. I say sufficiently because
the income some of them receive is not sufficient to
motivate creative behavior in the commercial world in
South Africa. People are then, depending on their makeup,
forced to take other routes to survive and put food on the
table, with a consequential loss of creative abilities in
the commercial world and with a consequential weakening of
South Africa’s competence in the global economy. To stay
honest is difficult because of pressures by society to be
dishonest in order to make a living.
In Holland for example they refer to
Intellectual Property as Geestelijke Eiendom (Harms,
A Few Negative Trends in the Field of Intellectual
Property, 2009, p. 540), which means Spiritual Property if
translated directly to English.
Dishonesty leads to short term gains but over
the long term it has a negative effect on creativity and
sustainability. This leads to a slowing or halt of
creation of own technology. A nation can then become
dependent on technologies which were developed in other
countries, which they have to purchase. To be able to
purchase the technology they need to borrow foreign
currency because the foreign nation wants to be paid in
their own currency for their own technologically advanced
products. Dishonesty became a debt trap. When the country
cannot produce enough from mining natural resources to
balance trade, ideas have to be developed to replace the
export of natural resources.
“As
global
competition becomes tougher and many competitive
advantages, such as technology, become short lived, the
brand’s contribution to shareholder value will increase.
The brand is one of the few assets that can provide
long-term competitive advantage. Despite the commercial
importance of brands, the management of them still lags
behind that of their tangible counterparts. Even though
measurement has become the mantra of modern management, it
is astonishing how few agreed systems and processes exist
to manage the brand asset.” (Clifton,
et
al., 2009)The value of a brand is the
opportunity saving which exist through savings of future
advertising and marketing expenses. A brand’s value cannot
be entangled with the value of an organisational structure
and human capital of an organisation.
Ideas implemented, usually make current
products less useful. If a motor vehicle manufacturer for
example brings a new model on the market to soon, the
previous model loses some of its usefulness and value. If
a manufacturer does not protect the new idea, as a trade
secret, when the manufacturer does not bring the new model
on the market, a competitor can use it. This puts the
manufacturer in a difficult situation because the
manufacturer does not want to bring a new model on the
market but it also does not want to lose the idea to a
competitor. Trade Secrets and how it functions in society
and the effect it has on capital values is not common
knowledge.
“All over the world, university campuses are
offering their research facilities, and priceless academic
credibility, for brands to use as they please. And in
North America today, corporate research partnerships at
universities are used for everything: designing new Nike
skates, developing more efficient oil extraction
techniques for Shell, assessing the Asian market’s
stability for Disney,……….” (Klein, 1999, p.
99) This quotation reflects part of
what is happening. Take note of the words “All” and
“everything”.
“Dr. Betty Dong, a medical researcher at the
University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), compared
a brand-name drug with brand-name money. Dong was the
director of a study sponsored by the British
pharmaceutical company Boots (now called Knoll) and UCSF.
The fate of that partnership does much to illuminate
precisely how the mandate of universities as sites for
public-interest research is often squarely at odds with
the interests of branded fact-finding missions. Dr. Dong’s
study compared the effectiveness of Boots’ thyroid drug,
Synthroid, with a generic competitor. The company hoped
that the research would prove that its much higher priced
drug was better or at least substantially different from
the generic one – a claim that if legitimized by a study
from a respected university, would increase Synthroid
sales. Instead, Dr. Dong found that the opposite was true.
The two drugs were bio-equivalent, a fact that represented
a potential saving of $365 million a year for the eight
million Americans who were taking the name-brand drug and
a potential loss to Boots of $ 600 million (the revenue
from Synthroid). After the results were reviewed by her
peers, Dr. Dong’s findings were slated to be published in
the Journal of the American Medical Association on January
25, 1995. At the last minute, however, Boots successfully
halted publication of the article, pointing to a clause in
the partnership contract that gave the company veto rights
over the publication of findings.” Later it was exposed in
The Wall Street Journal and the paper was published in
April 1997 two years behind schedule. Two other cases are
mentioned in Naomi Kleins’ book. “The only element out of
the ordinary in these three cases od stifled research is
that they involved academics with the personal integrity
and the dogged tenacity to publicly challenge their
corporate “partners” and their own employers – factors
that eventually led to the truth coming out through the
press.”…..”According to a 1994 study conducted on industry
research partnerships at U.S. universities, most corporate
interference occurs quietly and with no protest. The study
found that companies maintained the right to block the
publication of findings in 35 percent of cases, while 53
percent of the academics surveyed agreed that ‘publication
can be delayed’”........”Why have university professors
remained silent, passively allowing their corporate
“partners” to trample the principles of freedom of inquiry
and discourse that have been the avowed centerpieces of
academic life? (Klein,
1999,
pp. 99-103)
Fair equal opportunity competition is central
to a free market economy philosophy. If ideas can be
speedily implemented and idea generators are compensated
for generating ideas the free market economy and free
competition will work better to supply quality products at
reasonable lower prices. Free market theory and reality in
South-Africa with specific reference to IP is far apart.
Good ideas which should be implemented to make the market
economy effective through competition are not implemented
speedily. Generators of ideas often do not eventually
share in the economic benefits brought forth by their
ideas because of capital and/or knowledge limitations. The
generator of an idea is the individual who through logical
thought processes created the thought.
Intellectual Property has a significant
effect on the market values which are used in the
calculations to determine required rates of return and
discount rates of management accounting calculations.
Market prices of shares include IP, because the market
discounts the available information. Balance sheet values
sometimes include IP values, because IP is shown in
balance sheets only when it was purchased according to
International Financial Reporting Standard 3. If IP was
not purchased, but internally developed it may not be
included on the balance sheet according to International
Financial Reporting Standard 3. Direct opposing
philosophies exist with regard to IP. Transparency with
regard to IP is not enough for investors to take informed
decisions. Trade secrets have to be protected to sustain
businesses.
The above situation complicates the
calculation of required rates of return and discount rates
for investment- and cash flow analysis. Market values are
very unstable and fluctuate to such an extent that
reliable investment decisions are practically difficult,
because the discount rates fluctuate due to the
fluctuating market values in the rate calculation. To use
balance sheet figures are also complicated, because
sometimes IP values appear on balance sheets but not
always.
Cost of Capital in South Africa is
substantially higher than in first world countries. It is
the case partly because, on average development of ideas
is done less effectively than in the first world
countries. If ideas are developed in a more effective way
more frequently the average project income of capital
providers in South Africa will rise and they will be able
to therefore decrease their required rates of returns.
Plagiarism prohibitions, according to
European continent law are an international right which
authors have (Moore,
1997,
p. 7). The treatment of royalty
payments with regard to international copyrights and other
IP is not general knowledge and this dissertation will
hopefully shed light on the issue and possible ways to
protect ideas and create Intequity capital.
The link between ideas and the issue or
supply of capital is not generally well understood, and
this dissertation will expand understanding of the link.
Consequential better understanding of the cost of new
capital will be a result of the research.
The investigation of the relation between
honesty and logical thinking could expand understanding of
creativity and intelligence. Students who struggle with
the logical aspects of management accounting will benefit
from the research.
Hypothesis: Honesty affects innovation
An official market place for ideas and
Intellectual Property is currently envisaged as a solution
to some of the above problems. This dissertation will give
background knowledge to give an informed opinion about a
solution to the problems in a planned Doctors degree.
Hopefully the research will help to change
the cultural belief that innovation is a childish
attribute and that it should not be recognised
financially. The legal fraternity which does not protect
income from creation of ideas, partly because a thought is
not seen as work and not worthy of compensation, could be
influenced if the research shows that the creation of
logical good thoughts is a result of stressful, burdensome
and difficult kept honesty. The current legal view about
compensation in relation to idea generation is based
partly on the writings of John Locke.(Moore,
1997,
p. 27)The Lockean labor theory is the
first justification for ascribing ownership of property
according to the United States of America Constitution(Moore,
1997,
p. 108)“Although
patents do not have a similar exemption for personal use,
patent protection is subject to a judicially created
exception: the patent holder has no right against the
person whose ‘use is for experiments for the sole purposes
of gratifying a philosophical taste or curiosity or for
instruction and amusement.’ Such limitations are
motivated, in part, by pragmatic considerations as to the
difficulty of policing such infringements.These
limitations, however, also serve the perhaps primary
objective of intellectual property: to ‘promote the
Progress of Science and useful Arts’ by increasing
society’s stock of knowledge. Both concerns are best
served by limiting property rights over ideas.”(Moore,
1997, p. 113) The
“labor-desert” or “value-added” theory of Locke says that
people should be compensated if they contribute something
of value to the utilities society use.(Moore,
1997, p. 120) This is an
argument in favour of intellectual property rights and
income rights for idea generation.
The thought
that the idea is the less important is disputable. One
could argue that the idea was the more important of the
two because without the idea there would not be any
utilities. Generating the idea is also an important
attribute which distinguish humans from animals. Animals
do not have hands. If humans did not have hands and could
not communicate understandably it would have been much
more difficult to implement ideas. Human
development is dependant on hands and idea generating
minds and both should be compensated. In a competitive
economy compensation will determine what is done according
to Locke’s labor proviso. Without compensation for idea
creation the economy will not be competitive. If the idea
did not originate, the hands would not have had anything
to do. Therefore, generating the idea, adds significant
value because it creates work and helps to create
utilities. The idea generating mind and the hands do not
have to be part of the same human being. The handwork
creates only the utility with not as much work being
created by the handwork. During the handwork new ideas are
generated but these ideas are mostly “obvious” and does
not add unique value. To generate novel ideas and obvious
ideas are not as common as handwork because of the honesty
factor. The more honest persons are, the more likely they
are to create ideas, because of logic, which is a result
of honesty. The more people are dishonest, the more
difficult it is to stay honest for people who want to be
honest. To stay honest is difficult and therefore creating
the idea because of persevering with honesty falls under
Locke’s labour proviso which says compensation is
warranted because of the unpleasantness of labour. To stay
honest is an unpleasant labour of the mind. Without the
idea, there would be no utility, therefore the
“value-added” proviso is also fulfilled which warrants
compensation for generating ideas. The idea generator
often is an individualist and the handworkers are often a
group. Between the idea generator and the handwork group
there is the group who possess most of the Intellectual
Property. The possessors also control most that is
happening, with special reference to the level of
compensation of the idea generator and the handwork group.
Obviously the possessors think they have abundant
financial security. Financial security is a factor which
many idea generators and handworkers strife to, in order
to increase their standard of living and expected
perceived dignified retirement.
Moore identifies that one of the major
concerns with regard to the creation of IP is compensation
for creation.(Moore,
1997,
p. 93) I agree fully that compensation
is one of the most important issues which need change with
regard to IP issues. The reason is that the current system
encourages people to become dishonest because we are not
compensated for IP created. A big part of IP is controlled
by secrecy and the common law. Most secrets are open for
misuse because it is not subjected to the scrutiny of
society. If secrets are open for society it becomes
possible to misappropriate it. It depends therefore on the
people who are involved and their morals and not on the
system. Currently the system causes immorality because
creation is not sufficiently compensated. Creation has to
be sufficiently compensated in order for morality to
flourish. If it is overcompensated immorality can set in,
which is often the case if a person does not control new
riches within societal boundaries. What came first the
chicken or the egg? What came first, the new system or the
new morals? New morals which are accepted generate a new
change of a system. This could imply that the chicken came
before the egg and that the egg is the method which
spreads chickens over earth. Evolutionary changes could
cause a flying bird from a chicken’s egg. This flying bird
would then lay eggs which will spread the new specie over
earth.
Understanding the subject better will promote
speedier development and implementation of ideas in South
Africa with consequential benefits to society in general
and to the balance of payments. It should contribute to
lowering the cost of capital because of more successful
idea management and project development.
The link between cost of capital, the right
to printing of money, development of ideas, research
funding, accounting treatments, logical ability and
honesty will be investigated to better understand
realities of creation.
‘..are best qualified for the increasingly
important challenge of measuring non-financial factors,..’(Tilley,
2010) A study of non financial
matters which influence capital will contribute to a
better understanding of how non-financial matters
influence accounting.
The literature review is divided between the
proposed chapters of the dissertation as mentioned at 4.
(Planned structure and bibliography of each chapter).
The literature review consists of quotations
from and own thoughts whilst reading the following books
which was included in the planned bibliography in 4.
2.1.1
Intellectual Property, Moral, Legal and
International Dilemmas. Edited
by Adam D. Moore
Chapter
1 – Introduction by Adam D. Moore
Page 2: “ At the most practical level the
subject matter of intellectual property is largely
codified in the Anglo-American copyright, patent, and
trade secret law, as well as in the moral rights granted
to authors and inventors within the continental European
doctrine.”
It is not the entire landscape of IP law.
Part
I – The Moral Foundations of Intellectual Property
Chapter
2 - Justifying Intellectual Property by Edwin C.
Hettinger
USA - Copyright
Page 2: In the United States of America
copyright is protected under federal law or the 1976
Copyright Act. Section 102 of the Act determines the
subject matter as follows:
“Copyright protection subsists, in accordance
with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in
any tangible medium of expression, now known or later
developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced,
or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid
of a machine or device.”
Page 3: The system does not protect the
abstract idea because an idea can be expressed in
different words. If the idea could not be separated from
the expression, copyright protection is not valid. This is
called the ‘merger doctrine’. Plagiarism however can be
applicable even if the expression is different from the
original.
Page 4: An important restriction on the
bundle of rights is fair use. This refers to for example
the use of intellectual property by educators.
Page 19 (Edwin C Hettinger): The duration of
a copyright is the author’s life plus fifty years. These
rights are not universally applicable, however. Fair use
is applicable which gives for example educators,
researchers and libraries special privileges to use
copyrighted material.
USA Patent law (Page 4)
Page 4: Patents give twenty years exclusive
monopolies. Patents exclude obvious knowledge.
Page 5: “Unlike copyright, patent law
protects the totality of the idea, expression, and
implementation. Moreover, the bundle of rights conferred
by a patent excludes others from making, using, or selling
the invention regardless of independent creation.”
Own: In South Africa infringements on
copyright and patent law is not a criminal offence and
therefore it is very expensive to enforce the law with
civil proceedings. Patents are not investigated for
validity by the Companies and Intellectual Property
Registration Office of South-Africa. The courts and
negotiations, at high cost for persons, are therefore the
authority to decide on validity.
Trade Secrets (Page 6)
Page 6: “A trade secret is almost unlimited
in terms of the content or subject matter that may be
protected and typically relies on the private measures,
rather than state action, to preserve the exclusivity.”
Page 6: “Although trade secret rights have no
built-in sunset, they are extremely limited in one
important respect. Owners of trade secrets have exclusive
rights to make use of the secret but only as long as the
secret is maintained.”
Moral Rights: Continental System of
Intellectual Property (Page 6)
Page 7: “Independently of the author’s
economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said
rights, the author shall have the right to claim
authorship of the work and to object to any distortion,
mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory
action in relation to, the said work, which would
prejudicial to his honor or reputation”
Page 7: These rights go beyond the
Anglo-American rights.
Own: Pride, which is
one of the seven deadly sins of the Roman Catholic
Church, becomes more relevant with the Continental
System.
Justifying Property Rights - Edwin C
Hettinger (What
he says is not always clear)
Page 17: Edwin C. Hettinger argues that
because intellectual property can be used to satisfy a
need by more than one person at the same time it makes
intellectual property less relevant.
Own: It does not make sense to say that
something has to be done just because it is possible. Our
morals hinder us from doing some things. Hettinger’s
opinion is subjective and he does not draw the relation
between the income from IP and a home purchased with the
income on page 28. He argues from the viewpoint of a
citizen who receives accommodation and food irrespective
of the person’s income. It sounds like a communist
viewpoint where all people receive more or less the same
accommodation and food from the state.
Page 27: John Locke’s argument’s says that IP
or benefit should depend on the fruits of one’s labour and
desert. Desert refers to what one deserves due to the
effort rather than ability. Beauty and utility is seen as
less important than effort. Locke further argued about the
effects of appropriating more benefits than can be used.
Leaving benefits for other people and not causing spoilage
of benefits because it could not be used are mentioned.
Page 34: “We must begin to think more openly
and imaginatively about the alternative choices available
to us for stimulating and rewarding intellectual labor”
Hettinger gave as a reason for his statement that the
practical results of IP law is not always the result which
is required.
Chapter
3 - Trade Secrets and the Justification of
Intellectual Property: A comment on Hettinger - Lynn
Sharp Paine, Pg 39
Page 17 to 56: Own: From Edwinne C.
Hettinger’s and Lynn Sharpe Paine’s essays the clear
distinction between copyright protection and patent
protection on the one side and trade secret law on the
other side comes forth. Copyright and patent protection
encourages the disclosure of information which is
protected for a fixed period and trade secret law
penalises the disclosure of information. If information is
disclosed the protection can be foregone under some
circumstances under trade secret law. Trade secret law is
grounded in common acceptable morals generally seen, as
for the general good of society. Ideas are seen as IP of
the creator under trade secret law and therefore to be
communicated to others as the creator sees fit. If ideas
are lost due to espionage or other immoral practices which
infringe on the rights of individuals it is unacceptable
and remedies exist in trade secret law. It seems that in
the USA, IP law are enforced by the government and seen in
a criminal sense. In South Africa it is not the case and
IP law is only enforceable through civil actions. It is
perhaps the most relevant factor which makes IP law of
negligible use to an individual with limited financial
resources in South Africa.
Chapter
4 - The Moral Foundations of Intangible Property -
James W. Child, Page 57
Page 59: Own: John Locke wrote about morally
leaving resources for others, he wrote: “For he that
leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as
take nothing at all.” I assume by “another” he meant
others or all other people. Locke was a 17th
century philosopher (Wikipedia). He
reasoned that human beings has no instinct (Wikipedia),
a similar opinion as that of Eugene Marais in his book
Soul of the Ape.
Page 60: “Locke begins by saying labor can
increase the value of land tenfold, then a hundredfold,
and, at one point, a thousand fold. The point is that the
value produced by labor is a far greater source of
inequality than any slight discrepancies in size of
original appropriation. If you appropriate two acres while
I appropriate only one and we both leave our land
unimproved, you have twice what I do. But, if I get
maximum value out of my land by great industry and
application of reason, I might end up with five hundred
times your wealth while owning only half your original
amount of property. Locke, however, makes clear that he is
totally indifferent to even such radical disparities in
wealth, so that equality per se must be completely
irrelevant to him.”
Own: I agree sometimes with this statement
and it makes creativity much more relevant in the light of
creativity as a result of a moral attribute, honesty,
which is difficult to uphold and should therefore be
compensated fairly in a sustainable society. It is however
relevant how the information to improve the value was
attained. If it was attained by spying and breaking the
law the ownership is questionable and the moral
justification does not exist according to trade secret
law. Locke must have included creative thought or another
legal method of acquiring knowledge as a means to increase
the value in his reasoning because it is unlikely to
increase the value of land 500 fold with physical labor on
one’s own, especially without capital. With sufficient
capital the creative labor could be employed. When
Intellectual Property becomes relevant and correct
Intellectual Property rights are enforced the issue about
land becomes less relevant because by being ethically
honest, intellectual property or intequity will be
appropriated.
Page 72: James W. Child said the following
about Intellectual property: “We have an inexhaustible
‘frontier’ from which we can continue to appropriate such
property without denying anything to our fellow human
beings. Indeed, the accumulation of wealth in this manner
can (and should) be a Pareto-improving process, in that it
makes some better off while making no-one worse off”
Own: The above is not valid. It happens often
that new Intellectual Property replaces current
Intellectual Property and directly has a negative economic
effect on the owner of the old. The creators of new IP are
often excluded from the financial gain it brings forth.
A pareto improvement happens when two parties
to a transaction are both in a better situation after the
transaction.
Own: The
period which is considered after the transaction is
important because a person can for example through his
whole life improve his current position by buying a motor
vehicle as soon as the previous vehicle starts to give
problems. His current position is better with the new
vehicle, but during his old age he might not have
financial security because he purchased vehicles during
his life because there was no public transport. The pareto
improvements should be evaluated over a long period.
Locke’s proviso in summary says if after
appropriation of property ‘enough and as good’ is
available to others…………………………………...
Chapter
5 - Page 81: Toward a Lockean Theory of Intellectual
Property - Adam D. Moore
Page 83: He mentions the main difference
between intellectual property and physical property to be
the attribute of intellectual property which can be used
by many people at the same time whereas with a physical
thing like a computer, it can only be used by one person.
Software and hardware.
Own: These two things normally go together.
Software and hardware. A recipe and food. A process and
metal in a machine.
Page 187: Tom G Palmer highlights the
importance of interdependence between technology
developments and developments in intellectual property
rights. The first printing press and the first digital
storage device changed intellectual property rights
because duplication became
more relevant.
Adam D. Moore also says that all matter
already exists but that Intellectual Property is being
created.
Own: His statement ignores metaphysical
uncertainties. Very few people know if it is possible to
create matter if a person has enough belief.
He says Intellectual Property is infinite.
Own: I read or someone told me that by the
year 2036 progress will not take place because
mathematically it will have reached a point of no advance.
Like a “versadigde oplossing”
Page 89: “There is a monotonic relationship
between the probability of an opportunity (and its
results) and the value of the opportunity. This is to say
as the probability goes up so does the value and vice
versa. In a world of uncertain opportunities (and
uncertain results), opportunities are not worth their
results; they are worth something less. Compensation for
lost opportunities may cost less than it would otherwise
appear. While it is probably the case that there is more
to bettering and worsening than an individual’s level of
material well-being including opportunity costs, I will
not pursue this matter further at present.”
Page 90: “The commons or the state of nature
is characterized as that state where the moral landscape
has yet to be changed by formal property relations.
Indeed, it would be odd to assume that individuals come
into the world with complex property relations already
intact - that individuals or groups have property rights
to the universe or parts of the universe. Prima facie, the
assumption that the world is initially devoid of such
property relations seems much more plausible. The moral
landscape is barren of such relations until some process
occurs.”
Page 90 and 91: Adam D. Moore made the
following “proviso on original acquisition” (Moores’
words): “If an acquisition makes no one worse off in terms
of her level of well-being (including opportunity costs)
compared to how she was immediately before the
acquisition, then the taking is permitted.”
Own: This means to me that no original
acquisition should be permitted because if opportunity
costs are included, it includes taking away an opportunity
which could have been appropriated by someone else because
they were busy at the time and could therefore not pursue
or create the thought. See the next quote from Page 93.
They should however be able to create logical thoughts.
This implies that a person can only appropriate IP after
all other humans have digressed to a state where they
could not think logically.
Page 93: “When an individual creates an
intellectual work, she may, herself, bring about greater
opportunities and wealth for her fellows that serve to
compensate them for lost opportunities.”
Page 91: Moore then said; “If correct, this
account justifies rights to intellectual property. When an
individual creates an original intellectual work and fixes
it in some fashion, then labor and possession create a
prima facie claim to the work. Moreover, if the proviso is
satisfied, the prima facie claim remains undefeated and
rights are generated.”
Own: He distinguishes between labor and
possession which generates ownership rights. Labor,
according to the Lockean proviso is not disputed often.
Appropriation, which establishes ownership, is most often
a philosophical dispute. Original appropriation of IP is a
result of painstakingly staying honest by laborious mental
reaction.
Page 93: Moore identifies that one of the
major concerns with regard to the creation of IP is
compensation for creation.
Own: I agree fully that compensation is one
of the most important issues which need change with regard
to IP issues. The reason is that the current system
encourages people to become dishonest because we are not
compensated for IP created. A big part of IP is controlled
by secrecy and the common law. Most secrets are open for
misuse because it is not subjected to the scrutiny of
society. If secrets are open for society it becomes
possible to misappropriate it. It depends therefore on the
people who are involved and their morals and not on the
system. Currently the system causes immorality because
creation is not sufficiently compensated. Creation has to
be sufficiently compensated in order for morality to
flourish. If it is overcompensated immorality can set in,
which is often the case if a person does not control new
riches within societal boundaries. What came first the
chicken or the egg? What came first, the new system or the
new morals? New morals which are accepted generate a new
change of a system. This could imply that the chicken came
before the egg and that the egg is the method which
spreads chickens over earth. Evolutionary changes could
cause a flying bird from a chicken’s egg. This flying bird
would then lay eggs which will spread the new specie over
earth.
Page 93: “Rather than trying to justify every
particular appropriation by appealing to a Pareto-based
version of the proviso, we might try to justify an
institution or system.”
Page 94: “Within the Anglo-American tradition
the regimes of patent, copyright, and trade secrets each
serve to protect and maintain private property relations
in intellectual works.”
Own: The system can
also be misused to gather intellectual property illegally
and secretly from people who could not, due to financial
constraints, enforce their trade secret rights. In
South-Africa this is especially worrying because the IP
system is a civil matter without protection of individuals
from the state as in criminal matters. The contribution of
the state to protection is limited to the supply of courts
and an IP recording office. CIPRO does not decide on the
legality of patents. Without financial clout an inventor
is at the mercy of secrecy. Intellectual Property rights
are localised rights which in a system of secrecy make it
possible to sell IP over borders without compensating the
inventor. Not compensating the inventor in a capitalist
society encourages the inventor to create more because he
has to survive by his own means until he gives up
creating. This leads to immorality and eventually to a
decrease in creativity because, to survive and have a
fulfilling life, he has to throw his morals over board,
depending on his ability to persevere.
“Pareto
efficiency, or Pareto
optimality, is an important concept in economics with broad applications
in game theory, engineering and the social sciences. The term is
named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian
economist who used the concept in his studies of economic efficiency and
income distribution.
Informally, Pareto efficient situations are those
in which any change to make any person better off is
impossible without making someone else worse off.” (Wikipedia)
Part II –
Intellectual Property Issues and the Law
Chapter 6 - The
Philosophy of Intellectual Property by Justin Hughes
Page 107
Page 108: The
Lockean labor theory is the first justification for
ascribing ownership of property according to the United
States of America Constitution.
Page 108: “The main
alternative to a labor justification is a ‘personality
theory’ that describes property as an expression of the
self. This theory, the subject of Part III, is relatively
foreign to Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. Instead, its origins
lie in continental philosophy, especially the work of
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.”
Page 110: “Much
intellectual Property is produced only after considerable
financial investment,..........”. “It would not be
surprising if historical studies showed that most holders
of copyrights and patents come from at least middle-class
backgrounds. Own: I assume Hughes refer here to the USA.
Page 110: “While
ancient Roman laws afforded a form of copyright protection
to authors, the rise of Anglo-Saxon copyright was a saga
of publishing interests attempting to protect a
concentrated market and a central government attempting to
apply a subtle form of censorship to the new technology of
the printing press.”.....................’’Gathered
information’ is another genre of intellectual property.”
Page 112: “Although
the ‘inputs’ for the res of intellectual property are social –
the education and nurture of the creator – the assembling
of the idea occurs within the mind of the creator, which
produces something beyond those
inputs.”...................”Intellectual Property also may
be thought of as the use or the value of an idea.”
Page 113: “Although
patents do not have a similar exemption for personal use,
patent protection is subject to a judicially created
exception: the patent holder has no right against the
person whose ‘use is for experiments for the sole purposes
of gratifying a philosophical taste or curiosity or for
instruction and amusement.’ Such limitations are
motivated, in part, by pragmatic considerations as to the
difficulty of policing such infringements.These
limitations, however, also serve the perhaps primary
objective of intellectual property: to ‘promote the
Progress of Science and useful Arts’ by increasing
society’s stock of knowledge. Both concerns are best
served by limiting property rights over ideas.”
Own: For some other
people the primary objective of ideas and IP is to earn
their living in order to pay payments. The idea is
therefore their source of income. There should be income
rights on ideas to motivate generation of new ideas. This
will contribute to a more effective implementation
according to the primary objective of intellectual
property in the USA.
Page 116: Three
propositions in Locke’s labor theory can be used to
justify IP. They are mental labour, a common pool of logic
ideas, which is not significantly devalued by
appropriation of the idea and non waste by appropriating
not too much.
Page 119: In
explaining Locke’s view about the nature of labor Hughes
said: “......labor is defined as an unpleasant activity
not desirable in and of itself and even painful to some
degree.” ...................................”The normative
position states: the
unpleasantness of labor should be rewarded with property.
In this proposition
the ‘should’ is a moral or ethical imperative, which is
not based on any consideration of the effects of
creating property rights. In comparison the instrumental
(own:utilitarion) argument is directly concerned with
those effects. It proposes that the unpleasantness of
labor should be rewarded with property because people must
be motivated to perform labor.”
Page 119: “The
instrumental (own:utilitarian) argument clearly has
dominated official pronouncements on American copyrights
and patents.” (Own: Hughes said this about the courts of
America and the constition of the USA) “Congress is
granted the power to create intellectual property rights
in order ‘To promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts.’ As President Lincoln remarked, ‘the inventor had no
special advantage from his invention [under English law
prior to 1624]. The patent system changed this............
It added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in
discovery and production of new and useful things.’”
Own: From the above
it is clear that Hughes sees the motivation to create
utilities - factor as the main reason for intellectual
property rights in the USA as explained by courts and the
constitution. First the property rights motivate or create
creativity and the creativity created then creates
utilities.
Page 118: Hughes
also said: “For most people creation is less fun than
recreation” (own: relaxation)
Page 120: The
“labor-desert” or “value-added” theory of Locke says that
people should be compensated if they contribute something
of value to the utilities society use. Own: This is an
argument in favour of intellectual property rights.
Page 122: Before
they allow a patent in the USA the improvement of the
utility should not be “obvious” to an “average person
schooled in the art”.
Own: What is
obvious to one person is not obvious to another. According
to me the most important factor which determines
obviousnes is honesty as explained elsewhere.
Page 125:
”............, let us treat the creation of a finished
intellectual product as a two-step process. One step is
thinking up the ‘idea,’ used here in the usual sense of
the creative element or unique notion. The second step is
the work necessary to employ the idea as the core of a
finished product............................Edison had the
idea of a light source produced by electrons traveling
through a filament within a vacuum. He and his workers
then spent weeks finding the proper filament material, the
proper vacuum, and the proper electrical charge. These two
steps represent the difference between idea and execution.
Sometimes this difference is not readily visible or, when
it does exist, the part we identify as the idea may seem
the less important of the two components.”
Own: The thought
that the idea is the less important is disputable. One
could argue that the idea was the more important of the
two because without the idea there would not be any
utilities. Generating the idea is also an important
attribute which distinguish humans from animals. Animals
do not have hands. If humans did not have hands and could
not communicate understandably it would have been much
more difficult to implement ideas. Human
development is dependant on hands and idea generating
minds and both should be compensated. In a competitive
economy compensation will determine what is done according
to Locke’s labor proviso. Without compensation for idea
creation the economy will not be competitive. If the idea
did not originate, the hands would not have had anything
to do. Therefore, generating the idea, add significant
value because it creates work and helps to create
utilities. The idea generating mind and the hands do not
have to be part of the same human being. The handwork
creates only the utility with not as much work being
created by the handwork. During the handwork new ideas are
generated but these ideas are mostly “obvious” and does
not add unique value. To generate novel ideas and obvious
ideas are not as common as handwork because of the honesty
factor. The more honest persons are, the more likely they
are to create ideas, because of logic, which is a result
of honesty. The more people are dishonest, the more
difficult it is to stay honest for people who want to be
honest. To stay honest is difficult and therefore creating
the idea because of persevering with honesty falls under
Locke’s labour proviso which says compensation is
warranted because of the unpleasantness of labour. To stay
honest is an unpleasant labour of the mind. Without the
idea, there would be no utility, therefore the
“value-added” proviso is also fulfilled which warrants
compensation for generating ideas. The idea generator
often is an individualist and the handworkers are often a
group. Between the idea generator and the handwork group
there is the group who possess most of the Intellectual
Property. The possessors also control most that is
happening, with special reference to the level of
compensation of the idea generator and the handwork group.
Obviously the possessors think they have abundant
financial security. Financial security is a factor which
many idea generators and handworkers strife to, in order
to increase their standard of living and expected
perceived dignified retirement.
Page 126: It is not
possible to generalise about ideas and the value they have
because each idea is different.
Own: Each idea has
a different value because of differences in utility value,
labour unpleasantness value, place value and time of
origin value (original or not). There are two reasons why
it is difficult for some to realize the value of one’s own
ideas in South Africa. Firstly to raise capital to develop
ideas is difficult and secondly because protection of
trade secrets is dependant on civil cases. Many venture
capitalists require first that an individual supply
capital before they will get involved in financing IP. For
an individual to protect his trade secrets against
industrial espionage without capital is impossible.
Page 132 and 133:
There are no property rights for most ideas because it
would warrant enormous transfer of wealth and there would
then not be “enough and as good” ideas for other people to
use.
Own: Property
rights which makes the limitation of use possible and
income rights need not be simultaneously applied. It is
possible to apply only income rights to ideas without
applying property rights. This will encourage creation of
utilities as expected of IP rights in the USA IP law.
Page 134: “One rule
of thumb is that the more generally required by society an
idea is, the more important and less subject to
propertization it becomes.”
When Locke said
“enough and as good” he referred to physical land during a
period in which he opposed with his theory a monarchical
system which infringed on people’s rights of land use. (Wikipedia)
Own: Because there
are few property rights for ideas, normally idea
generators are not compensated. This leads to
deteriorating morals as explained before and to
David-and-Goliath situations. To develop products requires
ideas, labour, natural resources and capital. The ideas
which anybody can use are in the “common” sphere. Idea
generation fulfill Locke’s labour proviso of
unpleasantness and the utility measure but because there
is not “enough and as good” available appropriation of
ideas are not possible according to the law. The two
extremes in the production process are the idea and the
capital. Without the idea no product will come to being.
Without the capital no product will come to being. The
labour and natural resources are paid for by the capital
and normally this is available on the market at a cost.
The generators of capital and printers of money (monetary
system) and
their group at the extreme non-creative unconscious side
have free access
to ideas because allowing intellectual property rights for
the ideas would create monopolies disadvantageous (they
will have to pay to use the idea) to the monetary system
group and their “monopoly” of printing money and
developing ideas into monopolised patents. They get
interest from printing and lending money and profits from
patents they developed with the money they have easy
access to and the ideas they have free access to. This
income pay their expenses and living costs and planned
retirement because they have the monopolies on the
creation of money and patents. The monetary system can
print the money to develop ideas and through patent rights
create monopolies for the machines they can create because
they have the monopoly of printing new capital (money).
The creation of monopolies work to enrich the group of
people who are beneficiaries of the monetary system. If a
monopoly works against the group of the monetary system it
is not allowable. The idea generators at the extreme
creative side have not easy access to capital to develop
their ideas because they may not appropriate patents and
they are not compensated in relation to the utility and
unpleasantness value of the idea creation because it will
create monopolies for the ideas by appropriation of ideas
against the interests of the monetary group. If an income
right would be created on an idea it does not hinder the
distribution or the use of the idea necesarrily. A income
right on an idea would make enforcing payment of royalties
to the originator of the idea possible as in the case with
patents. An IP right can include or not include the right
to limit the use by others. The reasoning that an IP right
on an idea is not acceptable because it will create a
monopoly is invalid because the right could exclude the
right of limiting use by others. The practise of not
accepting income rights on ideas, penalises creativity
because the creator is not compensated for the effort. In
the American system of IP rights where the argument in
favour of IP rights stems from the promotion and
development of science and arts and utilities, this
argument actually favors income rights to the creator of
the idea due to the application of the creator’s idea by
others, because it will encourage the creation of novel
ideas and resultant utilities.
Hegelian
Justification for IP (Continental)
Page 141 to 146.
Hegel said a person can only be completely free if the
person maximises self actualisation of his will. What he
wants, he should be able to attain in order to be free.
His will and personality is thus the motivation for
property rights, because he wants to own and earn
something to have dignity or financial security as an
example.
Own: Hegel’s
philosophy seems to be very subjective and depends on the
will of each individual himself. It is a system but not a
system because there are few generalisations. In reality
it means that only a person who wants to live according to
the law can actually be free according to Hegel. His will
of wanting to live within the boundaries of the law comes
from within and not from outside and therefore he is free.
If the will of a person is to live outside the boundaries
of the law he is not free because he will be in constant
conflict with the authorities if he does what he wants. If
he does not do what he wants it can be hardly said he is
free. This is similar to what Jesus said. Love is to
respect the law.
Page 152: A painter
or a writer for example can identify more readily with a
creation of his than a person where the result of that
person’s labour was not influenced by his personality.
According to Hegel the painter or writer has a bigger
claim on ownership of his creation than the other laborer.
The reason is that the laborer’s “process” was more
“subject to external constraints” and personality was
“less apparent” in the “creation”.
Page 159: In France
and Germany the following apply: “For both copyright and
patent owners, there is the right to be properly
identified with one’s creations. For copyright owners,
there also exists an inalienable right to guard the
integrity of a work against change that would damage the
author’s reputation or destroy his intended message.”
Page 164: “ Both of
the grand theories for intellectual property – labor and
personality – have their own weaknesses. The labour
justification cannot account for the idea whose inception
does not seem too have involved labor; the personality
theory is inapplicable to valuable innovations that do not
contain elements of what society might recognize as
personal expression. The personality justification has
difficulty legitimating alienation, while the labor
explanation may have to shuffle around Locke’s non-waste
condition.”
Own: The labor
theory justifies IP income rights but not property rights
to a thought or an idea due to the unpleasant process of
staying honest which leads to logical creativity. Hegel’s
personality justification also warrants income rights to
ideas because honesty is a personality attribute which
causes the creation of ideas.
Chapter 7 - Page
179: Intellectual Property: A Non-Posnerian Law and
Economics Approach
by Tom G. Palmer
October 25, 2010
Page 179
‘The new
technologies include personal computers, digital encoding,
optical storage, virtually instantaneous electronic
communication, photocopying, optical scanning,
computerized databases, and many more.’
Page 180
‘Not only have
these new technologies radically changed many industries,
they have contributed to the explosive growth of a new
“industry” among economists and lawyers, as well. Much of
this work is characterized by overtly uitilitarian—even
Benthamite—concerns. The assumption is that the principal
or even sole criterion for evaluating intellectual
property law is its contribution to aggregate utility, and
that the legal regime governing ideal objects should aim
explicitly at a utilitarion result, maximising net utility
by balancing off the welfare gain from innovations induced
by intellectual property rights againts the welfare losses
resulting from the restrictions on the dissemination of
such innovations.
One of the most
explicit of the proponents of this view is Judge Richard
Posner. In spite of his criticism of Jeremy Bentham over
the common law,³ Although Posner significantly parts
company with Bentham over the common law³, with Bentham he
sees the law’s function as maximization odf some quantity:
in place of the norm of utility maximization, Posner
offers “wealth maximization”⁴ This change, however, takes
place within a framework that remains decidedly
Benthamite; judges are still exhorted to aim at an
explicit overall goal other than seeking justice in
particular cases. Wealth is substituted for utility as the
maximund, but the jurisprudential approaches remain
consistent. As Posner remarks, “The basic function of law
in an economic or wealth-maximisation perspective is to
alter incentives.”⁵ In other words, the role of law is
constructivistic and internventionistic, an attempt to
reorder economic institutions to attain a particular end.
Posner and his
colleague William M. Landes have applied this model to the
development of copyright in an attempt to explain “to what
extent the principal features of copyright law can be
explained as devices for promoting an efficient allocation
of resources” and to show that “the principal legal
doctrines” are “reasonable efforts to maximise the
benefits from creating additional works minus both the
losses from limiting access and the costs of administering
and enforcing copyright protection.”⁶ Landes and Posner
offer both explicit positive analysis of the law
(purporting to show how it promotes economic efficiency)
as well as exhortations to judges to apply the law so as
to attain this end. For example, in discussing
difficulties in applying the “idea versus expression”
distinction central to copyright law to computer programs
(to which the distinction is problematic), they state: “We
hope the debate will be resolved not by the semantics of
the words ‘idea’ and ‘expression’ but by the economics of
the problem, and specifically by comparing the deadweight
costs of allowing a firm to appropriate what has become an
industry standard with the disincentive effects on
originators if such appropriation is forbidden.”⁷
Own: It seems as if
they compare opportunity income and expenses on national
basis, across legal entities.
Page 212
‘³ For Bentham’s
attitudes to the common law, see G. Posthema, Bentham and
the Common Law Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
⁴ Posner, Economics
of Justice, 48-87, 88-115. For criticism of wealth
maximization as a normative principle, see J. Coleman,
Markets, Morals, and the Law (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), 95-132. For a criticism (from a
contractarian perspective) of the principle of wealth
maximisation as a descriptive principle, see K.
Scheppelle, Legal Secrets: Equality and Efficiency in the
Common Law (1988)
⁵ Posner, Economics
of Justice, 75.’
Page 181
‘In the course of
this chapter, I will present a “non-Posnerian” law and
economics approach to intellectual property rights;
patents and copyrights are forms, not of legitimate
property rights, but of illegitimate state-granted
monopoly. Insofar as my approach is a law and economics
approach, it is influenced by the more mainstream law and
economics of the jurist Bruno Leoni⁹ and the economist
F.A. Hayek,¹⁰ rather than by the “wealth maximisation”
approach of Judge Posner. Although the bulk of this
chapter offers an alternative model of the development of
intellectual property, it is implicitly a criticism of the
Posnerian/Benthamite approach.’
Page 182: The roots
of intellectual property law was the creation of
monopolies by protecting (Own: or securing) new inventions
in Europe. One of the earliest cited patents was in Venice
in 1469 for a printing press.
Chapter 8 - Page
225: Property, Monopoly, and Intellectual Rights by
Michael I. Krauss
Page 225 -232 Own
thought: Krauss and Palmer have opposing views about the
rights which copyright and patent law give in the USA. The
difference originates in the fact that generators of ideas
have no income right they can enforce against patent
holders and copyright holders who make use of the ideas
which originated from within the generators.
Chapter 9 - Page
243: The TRIPS Agreement: Imperialistic, Outdated, and
Overprotective by Marci A Hamilton
“In a system where
infringement is so easy, copyright protection will only be
as strong as its enforcement mechanisms. The existing
on-line universe has yet to land upon an enforcement
scheme that will safeguard the value of authors’ works
distributed on the network. The fear that they will be
copied en masse is so real in the current environment that
some publishers and artists may not realise their works
on-line. These artists are proving what standard copyright
analysis has assumed for decades: adequate copyright
protection encourages the distribution of creative works,,
while iadequate copyright protection lowers the birthrate
of such works.”
Own: The statement
of Marci A. Hamilton above supports my opinion that to
raise the intequity value of a company or country idea
generation need to be protected and compensated. Currently
ideas are in a free domain and therefor the economy will
not be competitive. Idea generation is currently not being
encouraged. A further motivation to protect idea
generation is the implications the protection has on
morals and truth. Honesty is an attribute of a creative
society and to be competitive, maximum balanced creativity
is important.
Insert from other
publication: The Global Information Infrastructure (GII)
promoted by the Global Information Society (GIS) is an
intiative in which the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and
the World Intellectual Property Organisation have an
important role. The inisiative aims at connecting
communication infrastructure and databases of the world
with sufficient protection of intellectual property across
the international infrastructure. (Arnold,
2007)(Page 274) The Berne Convention originated much of
the IP protection. The USA adopted the Berne Convention in
1988. In the USA non-commercial copyright infringement is
a criminal
offence. (Arnold,
2007)(Page 172)
Page 252:
Copyright law includes the principals of fair use and the
first sale doctrine. It means that in some instances
paying royalties are not applicable for example when a
library makes a book available to members of the library,
because the library owns and purchased the book at it’s
“first sale”. The TRIPS agreement will make it possible in
the envisaged GII to ask royalties for the browsing of a
publication on the Internet. It could change the current
standing of the first sale doctrine and fair use.
Page 252: “The
hackers have concluded that copyright law is likely to
perish because of the GII’s enforcement problems. This is
a premature entombment. As discussed below, if the world
community works together, the on-line community can be
sufficiently policed to ensure fair remuneration to
authors and artists.”
Own: Authors will
also then be policed in order to earn a fair income.
Page 257: “The
encoded message within TRIPS is that change, creativity,
and originality are positive goods. In short, revolution
and freedom are central to the highest standards of human
existence. As this message finds its way into unfamiliar
hearts, the copyright industries hope to take more than
they have ever been able to take in the past. This will be
a clash worth watching. If only we were nothing more than
spectators.”
Chapter 10 -
Page 265: International Copyright: An Unorthodox
Analysis by Hugh C. Hansen
Page 265:
“Copyright law is ‘territorial’. Each nation determines
the scope of protection and rights subject only to
bilateral and multilateral agreements, which, before the
Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations and the adoption of
the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property (TRIPS), were essentially unenforceable.”
Page 266: “The
nations of the world can be divided broadly into three
groups based upon their relationship to the production and
consumption of intellectual property products: (1) net
sellers-exporters; (2) those with the resources and
industries to become net sellers-exporters; and (3) net
users-importers. The first group, whose main member was
the United States, wanted broad protection world wide. The
second group, which included some members of the European
Community, also wanted broad protection world-wide and, in
addition, wanted to increase protection domestically to
give more incentives to their industries to create and
compete domestically and abroad. The third group, mainly
developing and newly industrialized nations, sought to
limit protection at least within their borders.”
Page 268: “a third
truth is that so-called ‘national treatment’ is the way to
increase protection for all and that ’reciprocity’ is the
nationalistic work of the devil.8” “8.
.............................’National treatment’ is a
phrase that means that in a country X a work originating
in a foreign
country will be given the same protection as works created
in country X. ‘Reciprocity’ means that in country X a work
of foreign origin will only be given the protection to
which that work is entitled in its country of origin.”
“The faith in
national treatment, which required action as well as
belief, was harder for the righteous to adhere to fully.
The United States inserted a resiprocity provision in its
sui generis legislation to protect semiconductor computer
chips. The EU inserted reciprocity provisions in the
proposed Database Directive and the term directive. Even
the Berne Convention allows for reciprocity in some
circumstances. However, the slips and falls of our leaders
do not mean that religious truths are false, only that the
flesh is weak. The TRIPS Agreement, recognizing this,
requires national treatment.11”
Page 273:
“........................... , and political leaders
sometimes lose the stomach for war. Time will tell.”
Part III –
Information and Digital Technology
Chapter 12 -
Page 299: The Virtues of Software Ownership by David
H. Carey
Page 299: “Three
broad approaches seem to dominate recent work in ethics:
the consequentialist, the deontological, and the emphasis
on character or virtue. The consequentialist approach
evaluates an action (rule, policy, etc.) by its net
consequences or effects. On this appraoch, for example,
good policies are those that on balance do more good than
harm for the people affected. The deontological approach,
in contrast, appeals to universal principles on which a
decision should be based rather than the actual outcome of
that decision. On this approach, for example, a decision
has moral worth if it respects a right, fulfills an
obligation, or follows from a duty. Typically, such
rights, obligations, or duties have a universal and
necessary quality; that is, they would hold for anyone in
a given situation, even if undesirable consequences would
result form recognizing them. Finally, the third approach
(that of so-called ‘virtue ethics’) emphasizes long-term,
habitual character traits (virtues and vices) rather than
actions, policies, or principles.
On consequentialist
grounds, for instance, one might argue that if allowing
some algorithms to be patented benefits society in the
long run more than it costs society temporarily to forgo
unrestricted use of those algorithms, then such patents
are morally defensible. The consequentialist approach
reflects the spirit and motivation of U.S. law more than
the other two approaches do. In contrast, elsewhere in the
world (among other signatories to the Berne Convention),
intellectual property laws smack more deontology. The
French, for instance, appeal to what they call droits morals
such as paternité –
the inherent right of a creator to control the
treatment of his or her creation, analogous to the alleged
right that parents have with respect to their own
children. On this approach, to infringe on a copyright is
to violate a personal right, not merely to fail to uphold
a social bargain.”
Chapter 14 -
Page 321: National and International Copyright
Liability for Electronic System Operators by Charles
J. Meyer
Page 323: “Internationally,
copyright protection is recognized in the multilateral
treaties of the Berne Convention, the Universal Copyright
Convention (UCC), and in various bilateral treaties.”
Page 330: “There is
no general, sui generis copyright law between countries.
The international law that exists is a result of
multilateral and bilateral treaties. When countries have a
copyright agreement, there are two types of protection
that can be given: national treatment or reciprocal
treatment.” .............” For ease of applicability and
uniformity within a country, most treaties give national
protection.”
Page 331: “ Before
these treaties, and still for non-member countries, there
was no international copyright protection.”
Page 331: The
Universal Copyright Convention was a United States
initiative which came into force during 1956. During 1997
the United States had copyright protection relations with
110 countries.
Page 331: “The
works must be first published by a national of a member
country or be first published in a member country. The
Berne Convention leaves the matter of when a work is
considered published, such as a requirement of tangible
form or of general distribution, to legislation for each
member country, while the UCC defines publication.48”
Chapter 15 -
Page 349: The Economy of Ideas: Everything you Know
about Intellectual Property Is Wrong – John Perry
Barlow
Page 360:
“Copyright expert Pamela Samuelson tells of having
attended a conference last year convened around the fact
that Western countries may legally appropriate the music,
designs, and biomedical lore of Aboriginal people without
compensation to their tribes of origin since those tribes
are not an ‘author’ or ‘inventor’”
Page 364: “ Someone
claims to have patented the microprocessor before Intel.
Maybe so. If he’d actually started shipping microprocesors
before Intel, his claim would seem far less spurious.”
“It is now
commonplace to say that money is information. With the
exception of Krugerrands, crumpled cab fare, and the
contents of those suitcases that drug lords are refuted to
carry, most of the money in the informatized world is in
ones and zeros. The global money supply sloshes around the
Net, as fluid as
weather.”......................................”However,
as we increasingly buy information with money, we begin to
see that buying information with other information is
simple economic exchange without the necessity of
converting the product into and out of currency. This is
somewhat challenging for those who like clean accounting,
since, information theory aside, informational exchange
rates are too squishy to quantify to the decimal point.”
2.1.2
A History of Money from Ancient Times
to the Present Day – Glyn Davies
Page 181: “A short-lived issue of Chinese
leather-money, consisting of pieces of white deerskin of
about one foot square, with coloured borders, each
representing a high value of 40 000 cash, dates from as
early as 118 BC. There ensues a very considerable gap of
900 years before we hear of the next significant
reference, this time to paper banknotes of a modern type,
in the reign of Hien Tsung (806-21)”
Page 181: Davies mentions hyperinflation in
China around 1000 CE together with large quantity printing
of paper money.
Page 220-222: Around the 1500 great debates
where taking place in England with regards to the interest
rate on borrowed capital. Eventually, in London for
example, interest of 10% per year was legal. During the
early 1400’s in Europe, City States borrowed from the
public and interest was argued to be a fee to replace lost
profit.
Page 223: Because variations in the flow of
precious metals played such an important role in
international trade and the foreign exchanges, it should
occasion no surprise that the foremost theoretical
developments of the period came to be known in England by
the term ‘bullionism’. What money is to ‘monetarism’, so
bullion was to bullionism, its theoretical
great-grandparent.
Page 229: “During periods of monetary
stability the general public does not bother about
monetary theory and the theorists lie dormant. It is
generally only during periods of substantial financial
changes that interest is aroused as to the true nature and
causes of such events. The usual result is to produce some
up-to-date variation of the quantity theory appropriate to
the particular circumstances obtaining at the time. The
quantity theory has been the most popular of the general
theories of money because it is almost infinitely
adaptable.”
Page 231: At several places reference is made
to the influence of coin debasement on rising prices.
Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) said the value of money
depends on the quantity and not the metal it is made of.
Copernicus said it is the duty of the royals to control
the quantity of coins to keep the value of money and also
inflation stable.
Own: Debasement normally implies greater
quantities of coins because silver and gold were mixed
with other metals in order to manufacture greater
quantities of coins. (N+1) = (r+1)(i+1). The formula for
the nominal interest rate of money clearly indicates what
the effect of inflation is on the cost of capital. If
inflation goes up the cost of capital rises. Logically
other factors which will affect the value of money are the
availability of the money. In the current economy, for
example, the availability of credit and the willingness of
the public to borrow will affect the availability and
circulation of a currency. If half of all the units are in
the safekeeping of one person then the quantity in
circulation will be less and the value higher. If the
circulation is less it could also mean that the
acceptability as a means of trading could become lower,
which could lower the value of the money and logically
prices will rise then because more of the currency will
have to be tendered for the same goods.
Page 232: The population size affects
inflation and disease and births.
Own: The population growth will affect the
number of transactions and the circulation of money and
the inflation and the cost of capital.
Page 231: During the 1400’s in Europe a
distinction was made between bullionist theories and
mercantilist theories for the value of money. The
bullionists said the value depends on the physical gold a
country hold as stock and the mercantilists said the
quantity of the money determines the value.
Own: Keynesian theory says the influence of
government policy which influences the demand for currency
influence the value of money. The theory I had during 1999
combined the three theories of bullionism, mercantilism
and Keynesianism.
Page 232: “By the beginning of the
seventeenth century therefore it was becoming clear to
practically all the writers on money (and they were many),
whether they might be considered bullionists or
mercantilists, that a persistent influx of precious metals
would bring with it serious inflationary consequences.”
Own: During the 1700’s in Europe they pressed
coins of precious and not so precious metals. To have a
clear formula to calculate the value of a currency the
currency should not include any precious material, because
the valuable commodities and goods should be above the
line and the currency below the line according to my
theory. I will call my theory the Deel theory of money.
Deel means in Afrikaans to divide by. Depreciation of the
commodities above the line is an important part of the
calculation.
Page 233: “Perhaps the single most important
sign that England was determined to develop her own
financial institutions rather than rely on foreign banks
was the building of the Royal Exchange in 1566. This was
the inspiration of Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-79) and it
received the royal seal of approval when it was officially
opened by Elizabeth I in the following
year.”...................”The most highly skilled workmen
and the most highly skilled operators on the foreign
exchange market (with the outstanding exception of Gresham
himself) were at first foreigners, especially Italians,
Germans and increasingly the Dutch. Gresham had learned
his skill mainly in Antwerp where he lived, on and off,
for twenty three between 1551 and 1574, operating both on
his own account and as a royal agent. There he learned the
art of large-scale lending and borrowing as well as
foreign exchange so thoroughly that he frequently
out-performed his foreign tutors.”
Page 235: “Although the origins of
double-entry bookkeeping appear to be uncertain, the
system had been in operation for well over a century
before the first Italian book on the subject was printed
and published in Venice in 1494.........................
The new form of bookkeeping gave a further stimulus to the
wider use of Arabic numerals.”
Own: The system which granaries used in
ancient Egypt to account for balances of corn accounts was
a double entry bookkeeping system because they deducted
and added corn from and to the accounts of persons who
kept corn in the granaries, as a means of payment. In the
place of using money, grain was used for the Giro
transactions. It is therefore possible that double entry
accounting originated as a result of the Giro granaries of
Egypt. At that time the book entry reflected the grain.
This supports my thought that money is just a reflection
or should be a reflection of an asset or assets. The Deel
theory formula of money also reflects this.
Own: Foreign trade is influenced by
currencies and the cost of capital of the currencies.
Normally when South-Africa buys high value foreign assets
via the international monetary system South Africa has to
borrow the foreign currency. South-Africa then pays
interest on the borrowed capital and profit on the
purchase of the assets. When South-African companies sell
high value assets for example gold it is sold in United
States Dollars. South-Africa does not earn interest on the
sale through the lending of South-Africa Rands to finance
the purchase. The United States Dollars earned by the gold
companies can be used to purchase foreign assets, which
could be nationalized by a foreign country. If the US$
were first exchanged for Rands to purchase the gold the
US$ would have been foreign reserves which are controlled
by the South Africa Reserve Bank. Currently the US$’s are
controlled by the gold companies. It seems though that
South Africa could earn more by forcing the foreign buyers
of gold to first borrow Rands and pay interest on the
Rands to purchase the gold with Rands, instead of selling
the gold in US$. If foreign buyers first borrow Rands to
purchase gold, South Africa will not have exposure to a
depreciating US$ which are held in reserve by the Reserve
Bank or gold mines. Can a foreign country be forced to
borrow local currency instead of buying the currency on
the market? I doubt it, it has to be the choice of the
foreign country, based on market rates whether it borrows
or buy local currency to transact in it. The demand for
the goods and commodities of a country and the balance
between the interest rate and the availability of the
local currency on the exchange market will partly
determine how a foreign country gets hold of local
currency to transact locally. The availability of the
local currency on the exchange market will depend on the
currency in circulation and the issue of new units of the
local currency by the reserve bank. Foreign expensive
assets sold to South Africa are normally financed by
borrowing foreign currency. China normally sells their
goods, which they call commodities for US$ to foreigners.
The cost of capital is influenced by its
availability. New capital is represented by assets and in
many circumstances it is currency, as the means to
purchase an asset. Its availability depends on the
willingness of the reserve bank and development agencies
to issue new units. The availability also depends on the
circulation of the currency on the open market. And
thirdly the availability depends on the interest rates
charged by commercial and merchant banks for lending the
currency. The cost of Intequity is related to the cost of
capital.
Pages 1-242: During the mid first millennium
international trade took place mainly with commodities
like gold coins and silver coins.
Own: It is understandable because in those
years it would have been a much greater risk to accept
paper money from a foreign country. Coins which were not
made of a valuable commodity like gold could be debased by
a foreign country’s monetary policy and was not as
acceptable as commodity based coins. Foreign paper money’s
value depends on the stability of that country’s monetary
system and foreign paper money is not legal tender in a
local country.
“Gresham's law is
commonly stated: ‘Bad money drives out good’, but more
accurately stated: ‘Bad money drives out good under legal
tender laws.’ This law applies specifically when there are
two forms of commodity money in circulation which are
required by legal-tender laws to be accepted as having
similar face values for economic transactions. Gresham's
law is named after Sir Thomas Gresham (1519 – 1579), an
English financier during the Tudor dynasty.”
(Wikipedia)(September 29, 2009)
Own: A good example
of this is Rands and Kruger Rands. Both are legal tender
but Kruger Rands are not used for buying and selling of
goods. Mostly Kruger Rands are exchanged for Rands or
another currency.
Page 246 - 247: During 1695 in Britain, John
Locke the
philosopher was in favour of keeping the standard weights
of coins and Isaac Newton was in
favour of debasement. Lock’s opinion was based on the
given unchanging standard weight of valuable metals.
Locke’s view was accepted. This eventually led to the
acceptance of the gold standard. Christmas day, 1699,
Newton was
promoted from Warden to Master of the Mint.
Page 257: “A new public bank would thus
achieve the dual related aims of reducing the rates of
interest through breaking the goldsmiths'
monopoly.”..................“Thus the Bank of England was
born out of a marriage of convenience between the business
community of the City, ambitiously confident that it could
run such a bank profitably, and the government of the day,
desperately short of the vary large amounts of cash
urgently needed to carry on the long war against Louis
XIV, the most powerful ruler in Europe.”
Page 257: The Bank of England was formed
around 1690.
Page 259: “The Bank of England came into
being by the Ways and Means Act of June 1694 and was
confirmed by a Royal Charter of Incorporation (27 July
1694).”..............”The Act was also known variously as
the 'Tonnage' or 'Tunnage' Act, because the taxes were to
be raised from both ships and wines, for the carrying
capacity of ships was then commonly measured either by the
'weight of water displaced method', or, which came to the
very much the same thing, the number of large casks or
'tuns' of wine........”
Page 261: “Freame and Gould (Forerunners of
Barclays)”
Page 261: “The Million Bank was also founded
in 1695 and combined its main activities of dealing with
lotteries and annuities with more general forms of
banking. However it also soon relinquished its banking,
but it continued to carry on acting as an investment fund
for the government securities for a century.”
November 16, 2009 – Own: While I was
preparing Financial Statements of Africahead Development I
made a note to the statements saying it is not possible to
account for losses of Intellectual Property which was
self-created because according to IFRS the asset may not
be accounted for.
November 19, 2009
Page 286: “Country banking and the industrial
revolution to 1826 – Professor Pressnell's authoritative
and comprehensive research on this subject (1956) has
confirmed Edmund Burke's contemporary view that by the
middle of the eigteenth century, which is approximately
the traditional starting date of the industrial
revolution, barely a dozen banking houses existed in
England and Wales outside the London area.”
Page 287: “Furthermore banks were not
required to have licences to issue notes before 1808, and
not every bank issued notes, though the majority of the
country banks did so. ............................... .
Growth became really strong from the 1780's, rising from
119 in 1784 to 280 by 1793, while the number of licenced
banks in the peak year of 1810 was 783, which together
with the unlicenced banks gives a total of over 800.
…...................... .This increased momentum of bank
formation lends support to Rostow's view that between 1783
and 1802 Britain experienced the world's first 'take off
into self-sustaining growth'”
“The fascinating variety of the origins of
country banking may be gleaned from the following list of
some of the main industries or occupations in which their
founding partners were engaged when they first became
bankers: army agents, agents for packet boats, and
attorneys; barristers, brewers, butchers and
button-makers, chandlers, church treasurers, coal factors,
colliery owners,........................ .Perhaps the
strangest of such origins is that of Fryer's Bank in
Wolverhampton, formed when an oak chest full of French
gold coins left behind by the followers of Bonnie Prince
Charlie in 1745, was eventually opened by Richard Fryer in
1807 to provide the initial capital used for investing in
what by then had become one of the most fashionable of
ventures, banking (Sayers 1957).”
Page 289: “One of the main reasons for
setting up a bank was the simple one of securing on a
regular and reliable basis the wherewithal to pay for
goods and services, given the unreliability of supply and
the very poor quality of most of the official metallic
money supply and the limited geographic coverage, lack of
knowledge of or faith in the notes of the Bank of England,
especially during the periods when its notes were issued
only in large denominations.”
Page 289: “Barclays originated in the rural
corn-growing area of East Anglia where John and his
brother Henry Gurney set up a banking house in Norwich in
the 1750s. This famous Quaker family, through its
relations, friends and co-religionists, spread its
influence widely to as far as Keswick and Ireland, as well
as establishing in London what was to become the largest
bill-broking firm of the mid-nineteenth century.”
Page 294: “The first great era of token
production during the Industrial Revolution began with the
issue in 1787 by the Anglesey Copper Company, using the
high-quality ore from its local Parys mine, of a very
attractive 'Druid Penny' which could be exchanged for
official coin at full value, if so desired, at any of its
shops or offices. Soon practically every town in the
country was producing its own tokens, often buying the
blanks, dies and designs from Birmingham and elsewhere.”
Page 296: “................while notes, even
of the Bank of England, were not deemed worthy of
consideration of legal tender status. ….......... .In
between the restrictive Acts the supply of unofficial
paper swelled to meet the growing demand in a
fundamentally new way which meant that no longer had the
provincial businessmen to go cap in hand to the monarch,
or to Parliament (or even to London as they had to in
previous and in later years) in order to increase the
money supply. Instead the money was being created locally,
on the spot, when, where and to the degree demanded. This
most useful but unstable volume of credit was being
created 'by the needs of trade', or in modern terminology,
endogenously by the effective demands of business and not
exogenously by the central monetary authority – by the
market rather than by the Royal Mint.”
Page 298: “The external drain was
considerably intensified when the grossly inflationary
issues of assignats
(paper notes originally based on the value of Church
and other lands confiscated by the French revolutionary
government) were replaced in July 1796 by a gold-based
currency. This had the effect of drawing bullion back from
Britain.”
November 22, 2009
Page 405: “The Radcliffe Committee in 1959
examined four alleged gaps in the finance available for
the following sectors: agriculture; exports; research and
development; and money transfers.”
November 23, 2009
Page 431: “The term 'monetarism' was coined
by Professor Karl Brunner (1916-89) as a convenient label
for the counter-revolution against the Keynesian economics
that had dominated theory and policy in many countries,
but especially Britain, for much of the three or four
decades after 1936. This counter-revolution was triggered
by Milton-Friedman's famous Restatement of the Quantity
Theory as early as 1956, and thanks to Brunner, made
quicker progress in Switzerland and West Germany,
countries of markedly low inflation.................... .”
Page 432:”'The new challenge to Keynesian
policies.......not only argued that Keynesian theory
cannot handle inflation, but also that Keynesian policies
are themselves the cause of inflation;..........”
Page 433:” The anti-monetarists could claim
that their repeatedly stated view (e.g. see Kaldor 1970)
that there was no close correlation between the money
supply and the rate of inflation was thereby proven; in
contrast the monetarists could – until 1987 – claim, that
despite the unfortuante slippage of the money supply
brake, their genral policy of bearing down on inflation
was working.”
Own: My Deeltheory of money and inflation
explains why there is a close correlation between the
money supply and inflation.
Page 439: “Although the quantity theory is
the world's oldest explanation of the relationship between
money and prices and was known to the ancient Greeks and
has had a continuous existence in Europe since the
sixteenth century, yet official statistics categorizing
the money supply into narrow, medium or broad bands were
not published in the UK until 1970 - ….............”
The United States of America – Monetary
Development
November 24, 2009
Page 485: “from the economist's standpoint
counterfeit notes and coins, so long as they are accepted,
carry the same power as their legal counterparts. Legally
the counterfeiter is always a malefactor, but economically
speaking he may often be a public benefactor.”
Page: “From 1848 for nine years an enormous
increase in gold gave one of the clearest examples in
history of the stimulative power of good-quality money.
Business and especially banking confidence built an
excessive super-structure of credit on this golden
foundation, leading in the autumn of 1857 to 'what has
been called the first really world-wide crisis in
history...in which all the feverish and gold-dazzled
activities of the mid-fifties ended' (Clapham 1970, II,
226).”
Page 486: “....... 5 January 1858. Certainly
the American economy was immeasurably stronger than it had
been twenty-one years earlier when every bank was forced
to suspend specie payment of notes.”
Page 495: “It is against this international
background, battling valiantly but vainly against the
tide, that America's 'blundering enrapturement' with
bimetallism as part of its great money question has to be
judged (Nugent, 1968)”
Own: It seems as if Glyn Davies, the writer
of this book, when he wrote it tended towards a
bullionist's belief.
France
December 1, 2009
Page 555: “France's first venture into public
banking was instigated by John Law
(1671-1729). He was born in Edinburgh, where his father
was a goldsmith and a banker. ......................
.After some ten years' absence he returned to Scotland
where in 1705 he published his unconventional but
inspiring ideas in a book entitled Money and Trade
Considered: With a Proposal fro Supplying the Nation
with Money. Metallic money was unreliable in
quantity and quality, often inflicting restraints on
trade. Banknotes, issued and managed by a public bank,
were superior and would remove the harsh brakes imposed by
an insufficient supply of precious metals.
................... .His ideas were rejected in his own
country but, after he returned to France in 1713 and
gained the ear of the Duke of Orleans, were eventually put
into practice, largely because of the parlous state of
French public finance.”
Page 556: “Law's 'system' thus became in
effect a vast state trust controlling banking, the
national debt and a great part of the country's foreign
trade. For a while the system worked with the startling
success and the nation, as well as the speculators,
prospered. Law himself made a fortune, and after
conversion to Roman Catholicism was made Minister of
Finance. However by the spring of 1720 the overissue of
notes, combined with excessive speculation in the shares
of the new companies, led to a drain of precious metals
from France to London and Amsterdam. On Law's advice the
Regent attempted to stem the tide by enforcing payment in
notes only, while maximum personal holdings of coin were
to be limited to 500 livres. ….................. . The
Mississippi Bubble had burst and Law's system had gone
into reverse.”
Page 556: “.........absorbed by the Bank of
France in 1800 and 1803 respectively. The bills of these
public discount houses and of the many private houses
supplemented a growing flood of state paper issued by the
hard-pressed revolutionary governments in the eleven years
from 1789 to 1800. The most notorious of such issues were
those of the assignats.
One of the first acts of the revolutionary government in
November 1789 was to take over the ownership of Church
lands, and on the basis of this security to issue bonds
casrrying 5 percent interest, with purchasers being
'assigned' on redemption a portion of land to the value of
the bond. …................assignats simply became state-issued,
inconvertible fiduciary notes.”
Page 560: “Whereas Britain had erected an
inverted pyramid of bank credit upon a small gold base,
with open market operations and bank rate impinging on the
bank multiplier to bring about the desired variations in
the quantity and price of credit, France built a more
stolid, columnar structure resting on a broad base of
gold, with far less use of open market operations or of
variations in the rate of discount.”
Germany
Page 573: “As the present writer emphasized
(to the Wilson Committee), 'there is considerable
justification for the view that the inadequacy of bank
support (in Britain) for industry extends far back to the
early days of the twentieth century' (quoted in Edwards
1987,31). In every locality in Germany local, regional and
nationwide banks compete to supply local industrialists
with their particular requirements.
Page 574: “Even Dr. Feldenkirchen is forced
to concede that instead of speaking of a 'dependance of
industrial enterprises on the banks' – which he tries to
dispute – we should speak 'rather of a mutual
interdependence' (1991, 135). It was this special
relationship between banks and industry that helped
Germany to achieve such spectacular growth in the
half-century up to 1914,.......”
Japan
Page 583: “It is abundantly clear from the
Japanese example that the close involvement of banks in
industry, if properly developed, does not,as feared in
Britain, inhibit or endanger the growth of the banking
industry – a fear once more strongly but falsely paraded
during the 1990-2 recession. (It was not lending long to
British industry but rather to property companies and
Third World countries that led to the large banking losses
in Britain and America,
…..........................Japanese history provided the
world's most powerful demonstration of the mutual benefits
that banks as well as their industrial customers gain from
their close interrelationship , and at the same time
exposed the myth, nurtured for a century by
conventional British bankers and complacent governments,
that only through their cold and cautious avoidance of
long-term commitments to industry could British banks
avoid failure.”
Own: This does not say a lot for British
products because it could mean that British products is
not competitive enough against German and Japanese
products. My thoughts of honesty, logic and creativity.
There are many things which influence success therefor I
am very weary to ascribe the success of the Japanese and
German industries to the cooperation between the banks and
industry, nevertheless such a relationship might be
crucial for success. If the relationship does not exist it
could mean that somewhere else there is a problem which
hinders such a relationship. If both parties does not add
value it could be problematic. I thought that the German
industrial world is dominated by engineers. It was
surprising to me that they cooperate a lot with bankers in
Germany.
Page 585: “Two of the main methods by which
the Bank of Japan had achieved these results were by its
consistent downward pressure on interest rates for
privileged purposes and its encouragement of the special
banks set up to provide long-term loans to industry.”
December 2, 2009
Page 595: “Monetary policy may have its
limitations, but it need not be impotent. If accompanied
by appropriate improvements on the supply side, it still
has a role to play on the demand side to help in bringing
the world's second most powerful economy closer to its
imposing potential.”
This sentence I realised on my own. It is
basically the explanation of my Deeltheory. The monetary
side is below the line and the supply side or goods side
is above the line. Friedman below the line Keyns above the
line. The cooperation and effective support of each other
in Japan and Germany promoted the success of their
economies after the second world war according to Glyn
Davies who wrote A History of Money.
Third World Money and debt in the twentieth
century
Page 607: “Free trade and laissez-faire were
largely discredited and therefore discarded when the
international gold standard broke up in the 1930s.
Nevertheless external trade and payments continued to exert their
customary force as key factors in colonial monetary
development at a time when the world split up into two
main monetary blocs, the sterling area and the dollar
area. …............ .The sterling area comprised all those
countries between which payments were mainly or entirely
made in sterling, which therefore kept their reserves in
sterling and which found it convenient or imperative to
rely on the financial services of the City of London,
which had long been (and still remains) the largest
foreign exchange market in the world. …................
.All members kept their currencies fixed to sterling and
kept their exchange reserves, or almost so, in the form of
sterling balances in London.”
Page 614: “According to research carried out
for the Central Bank of Nigeria over 80 percent of the
loans made by expatriate banks during the period 1963-8
matured (nominally at least) within three months, and 95
percent within twelve months. In 1970 just over half of
their loans went to purely expatriate enterprises of mixed
ownership (Nwankwo 1980, 75). Although the total lending
by indigenous banks was very small compared with that of
the expatriates, the bulk of their lending was to
Nigerians (77 percent),....
Page 620: “Despite political independence,
the old colonial banking system has been generally
replaced with very similar systems which allow privileged
borrowers the lion’s share of available finance at low
real rates while depriving the vast majority of indigenous
farmers and industrialists of the finance they need.
Professor Mckinnon gives examples from Ethiopia of
moneylenders charging rates of interest of from 100% to
200% in the rural areas while in the urban areas banks
were charging importers 6 per cent and manufacturers 8 or
9 per cent....Sixthly and finally, the Shaw-McKinnon
thesis gives support to the ‘trade not aid’ and
‘bootstrap’ approaches to development. The authors show
that much (though not all) aid is perverse in its
results,... ”
Page 622: “The modern monetary and banking
systems exported from Europe by its bankers in order to
finance the growing trade in palm oil, cocoa, coffee,
jute, tea, rubber, tin and so on were superimposed ona
number of vastly different indigenous financial
foundations, ranging from the predominantly primitive
monetary economies of much of Africa and the West-Indies
to the much more complex and long-established financial
practices of India, China and South-East Asia.”
Page 632: “Adam Smith, foreshadowing Rostow
by three centuries, emphasized the crucial role of capital
in development as follows: ‘Every increase or diminution
of capital tends to increase or diminish the real quantity
of industry, the number of productive hands, and
consequently the exchangeable value of the annual produce
of the land and labour of the country, the real wealth and
revenue of all its inhabitants.’ Smith also succinctly
encapsulated the later prolix preaching of the IMF and
World Bank when he went on to warn that ‘Capitals are
increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigality and
misconduct’(Wealth of Nations, Book ii, ‘On the
Accumulation of Capital’ 301)”
Page 632: “... underlines the world debt
crisis of the last two decades of the twentieth century.”
Page 638: “As part of the swing of the
pendulum, Keynes is no longer king; but his insight into
the relationship between saving and investment taught us
that saving is not a fixed sum determining investment –
but rather that investment (if efficient, as we have now
learned), enlarges the global income so as to provide the
higher savings required.”
February 17,18, 2010
12. Global Money in Historical
Perspective
Page 647: “During this period the pound
sterling gained considerable prestige by being less
frequently and less drastically debased than most
continental currencies. In this connection, however, we
should remind ourselves of the point emphasised in chapter
4, that the countries which experienced the greatest
economic growth were also those which had indulged in the
most severe debasement.”
Page 655: “The lesson has been learned
worldwide, though at great cost, that it is countries,
with low inflation that have achieved high growth rates
and therefore low unemployment.”
Own: The two statements above seams
derogatory because if a currency is weakening normally
inflation goes up. This happens because of higher import
prices. I assume there is a lag between the depreciation
of a currency and the job creation because the development
products do not immediately replace the imports (few
jobs). Low inflation and an appreciating currency seams to
lead to long term stable growth if management is good or
revolution circumstances if management is bad, and a
depreciating currency leads to revolution circumstances if
management is bad and to growth if management is good. J
Page 656: “ It has taken two generations for the truth
finally to be fully accepted by the general public and by
the political decision makers – first, that the apparent
short-term benefits of inflation are outweighed by its
long-term costs; secondly, that inescapably one of the
keys to a successful economy is control of the money
supply in its changing forms; and thirdly, that this can
be achieved only by limiting national governments’
sovereignty through setting up independent central banking
systems....’crucified on a cross of gold’...’held to
ransom by money monopolists’...’made bankrupt by high
interest rates’...”
13. Further towards a Global Currency
Page 661: “If Britain had raised the gold
content of the sovereign by about 1 per cent, if the USA
had made a similar adjustment in the opposite direction
and if France had raised its seigniorage charge slightly
to 1 per cent, then, said the optimists, the whole of the
civilized world would have followed this lead and the
ideal of a universal single money system would have
resulted.”
Own: Per cent
Page 662: “Thus in a letter to the king of
Naples on 6 May 1807 the first French emperor wrote:
‘Brother! When you issue coins . . . in this way there
will be monetary uniformity all over Europe [as with de
Gaulle, Britain was non-European] which will be a great
advantage for trade.’ The same letter was written to other
heads of state.”
“converse”
Page 665: “Like Britain, Denmark and Sweden
have so far remained outside the Eurozone. Denmark held a
referendum on entry on 29 September 2000 and, to the
surprise of the government, the larger trade unions and
most big business, decided by a significant majority of
53% to 47% not to join the Eurozone. Sweden similarly has
up to now remained aloof, while Norway and Switzerland are
not in the EU.”
Page 673: “. . . David Chaum, one of the
world’s leading experts on computerized currency.”
Page 674: “Freedom of trade coupled with
flexible finance has provided a far more efficient
allocative and productive system than any alternative,
such as command economies, as numerous examples
conclusively prove, from Athens as opposed to Sparta in
the ancient world to the USA contrasted with the USSR in
modern times.”
Fin: February 18, 2010
June 10, 2010
Page 483
‘IP legislation in South Africa
goes back to 1860, the date of the first Patent Act.¹ In
1916, it adopted the then applicable Commonwealth
standards. Since then it has kept up with international
developments and its laws have been updated regularly,
since 1978 with special reference to EC directives
(because the EC is its biggest trading partner)² and since
1993 with regard to the TRIPs Agreement. In addition to
the usual IP legislation, special anti-counterfeiting
legislation has been in existence for more than a century.⁴ A more comprehensive
and modern anti-counterfeiting statute was adopted in 1997⁵. Although South
Africa became a republic only in 1961, it had joined in
its own right the Berne Convention in 1928 and the Paris
Convention in 1947. A bilateral agreement on copyright was
concluded in 1924 with the United States.⁶ IP enforcement in
South Africa has a long history.’
Page 484
‘South African law and the common law can
best be illustrated with reference to passing off and the
protection of confidential information: South African law,
like the civil law, recognises a general delict of unfair
competition while the English common law has no general
unfair competition tort. However, the approach in South
Africa to unfair competition is heavily influenced by
common law precedents.²¹’
‘Some IP rights have a common law
origin but the common law has been replaced by statutory
law—in later years in consequence of international
obligations.³⁰ The original common law precepts
have little, if any, residual value. There is in South
Africa, for instance, no common law patent or common
patent law³¹; likewise, there is no copyright (author’s
right) except to the extent recognised by statute.³² On
the other hand, unregistered trade mark rights have
continued to exist side by side with the system of
registration and may trump registered rights.³³’
Page 485
‘IP laws tend not to criminalise
IP infringement. If they do, and there is an overlap
between civil and criminal liability, the rightholder in a
sense has a choice whether to pursue the one or the other
route (or both). The difference between civil and criminal
proceedings and the exercise of the choice of remedy is a
matter requiring further discussion. One exception to the
general rule is contained in the Copyright Act,³⁵ which criminalises
piracy, i.e the making of infringing copies with knowledge
of the copyright. IP infringement is more generally
criminalised by means of anti-counterfeiting laws.³⁶(Similar exceptions are sometimes
found in trade mark laws.) Counterfeiting amounts to
fraud: a misrepresentation coupled with criminal intent,
but anti-counterfeiting laws protect registered trade
marks and copyright only.’
2.2.1
1966 - Creativity and Academic
Achievement – Joseph C. Bentley
September
29
Page
269
“This
study attempts to clarify relationships between creative
abilities and academic achievement. Creativity Test
Scores, Millers Analogies Scores (MAT), and achievement
scores representing Guilford's categories of Cognition,
Memory, Divergent Thinking and Evaluation were obtained
for 75 graduate students in education. Re sults indicated
that creative test scores correlated sig nificantly with
divergent thinking and evaluative abilities; no
correlation was found between creativity and cognitive and
memory scores. MAT scores correlated with all men tal
operation categories, although the relationship was less
for divergent thinking and evaluative categories. No
differences were found between MAT scores and cr?atives
scores in predicting academic achievement. Since most
academic examinations favor memory and cognitive
abilities, it was concluded that the highly creative
student is often penalized unduly.”
Own:
“No correlation was found between creativity and cognitive
and memory scores”.
2.2.2
1973 Ability and Creativity in
Mathematics – Lewis R Aiken, Jr.
28 September 2010
Page 405
“In any event,
affective and cognitive variables interact in a complex
way to influence performance in mathematics. Therefore, it
is important to consider the effects of attitudes,
temperament, and other personality variables, as well as
the sociocultural context, in discussing mathematical
ability and creativity.”
“The concept of
mathematical "types" or dispositions has been promoted by
laymen and professionals alike. For example, it is not
uncommon to hear a student explain his poor performance in
mathe-matics as being due to the lack of a "mathematical
mind." Similarly, the Russian psychologist Krutetskii
(1969b) refers to children who are gifted in this subject
as having a "mathematical frame of mind." According to
Krutetskii, such children find mathematical meanings in
many aspects of reality and tend to categorize things in
terms of mathematics and logic.”
Page 409
“Getzels (1969)
classifies definitions of creativity into three
categories: those that refer to (1) a manifest product
which is novel and useful (MacKinnon, 1962); (2) an
underlying process which is divergent but fruitful
(Ghiselin, 1952); (3) a subjective experience which is
inspired and immanent (Maslow, 1963). With respect to
mathematical creativity in particular, the following
definitions have been offered:
1. Creative
thinking is thinking which results in additions to
knowledge (Carlton, 1959).
2. Creativity is
the ability to produce original or unusual, applicable
methods of solution for problems in mathematics (Spraker,
1960).
3. Creativity is
the ability to combine ideas, things, techniques, or
approaches in a new way (Romey, 1970).
4. Creative
mathematics is the ability to analyze a given problem in
many ways, observe patterns, see likenesses and
differences, and on the basis of what has worked in
similar situations decide on a method of attack in an
unfamiliar situation (Laycock, 1970).
The first two
definitions are concerned with the creative product, and
the last two with the creative process.”
Page 411 – 412
“A
wide range of correlations between creativity and IQ,
varying with the particular instruments and the group
tested, has been reported. Consistent with earlier
findings, Lanier (1967) and McGannon (1972) found the
correlations of certain tests of general creativity
(Remote Associates Test, Torrance Tests of Creative
Thinking) with intelligence test scores to be low (.20 to
.40). In contrast, Banghart and Spraker (1963), Prouse
(1967), and Evans (1965) reported moderate correla-tions
(.40 to .60) between intelligence and their measures of
mathe-matical creativity. Although Borgen (1971) found the
creativity tests prepared by Guiiford and his associates
to be significantly related to arithmetic achievement, the
correlations between scores on Torrance's tests and
mathematics achievement are usually rather low (Cicirelli,
1965; Lanier, 1967). Finally, Evans (1965) and Banghart
and Spraker (1963) also found significant correlations
between their mathematical creativity measures and tests
of achievement in mathematics.”
Page
412
“The
low correlations of general creativity with intelligence
and academic achievement were not unexpected…Furthermore,
Bentley (1966) states that tests of intelligence and
achievement favor memory and cognitive abilities and
consequently penalize highly creative students…Another
possible cause of the low correlations between creativity
and traditional tests of ability or achievement is the
moderate reliability of most creativity tests, typically
in the .80's. Also, the correlations among different
measures of creativity are themselves frequently low, a
fact that helps explain conflicting results obtained in
studies employing different instruments…Yamamoto (1965)
also concluded that the evidence from factor analysis does
not confirm the existence of a separate creativity factor.
Thorndike (1963), however, found some evidence for a broad
factor of creativity separate from general intelligence.”
Page
412 - 413
“In
any event, the debate over the magnitude and meaning of
the relationship of creativity to intelligence and
achieve-ment continues.”
Page
413
“Intelligence
and
achievement are not the only variables related to
mathematical creativity. Numerous organismic, personality,
and socio-cultural factors have been studied as causal or
contingency variables in investigations of mathematical
ability. In the next two sections of this paper, some of
the physiological and psychosocial factors that have been
associated with mathematical ability and creativity will
be considered.”
Page
414
“Although
the influence of heredity on mathematical abilities is
debatable, at least one psychologist has offered a
tentative physiological explanation for individual
differences in these abilities. Krutetskii (1969 a, c)
suggested that mathematical stimuli and activities affect
the capacity or strength of nervous processes in a
different way from other kinds of stimuli or activities.
In addition, the nervous systems of some people may be
more sensitive to stimuli having mathematical
charac-teristics (relations, symbols, numbers) than to
other stimuli. Their brains, in other words, are more
easily "oriented" toward relationships and symbols and
respond optimally to these kinds of stimuli. As a
consequence, such individuals can form associations
involving mathe-matics with less effort and retain them
longer; they are also more resistant to fatigue that is
specific to mathematical activity.”
“Research
results
show that, on the average, girls tend to score higher than
boys on tests of verbal fluency, arithmetic fundamentals,
and rote memory, whereas boys are superior in spatial
ability, arithmetic reasoning, and problem solving (see
Aiken, 1971; Werdelin, 1961). But sex differences in
abilities are less pronounced in the early grades, and
there is a general differentiation of abilities with age
and experience.”
“The
occurrence of changes in mathematical abilities with age,
in the direction of greater crystalliza-tion or
specificity, is widely documented (Krutetskii, 1966; Very,
1967; Dye & Very, 1968; Geng & Mehl, 1969). This
observed fractionation of mental abilities as the
individual matures was labeled by Dye and Very (1968) as
the "Age Differentiation Hypothesis," a hypothesis that
has stimulated further research (e.g., Khan, 1970). Not
only is the degree of age differentiation in mathematical
abilities greater for boys than for girls (Dye & Very,
1968), but it varies with the particular social or
cultural group studied. Anastasi (1970) has interpreted
these findings in terms of Ferguson's (1956) hypothesis
that specific mental abilities result from transfer of
training among the different tasks required of people in
different sociocultural contexts. For example, the
relatively greater emphasis in Western culture on the
acquisition of verbal skills by girls, as opposed to
quantitative and spatial-perceptual skills, may help
explain why Dye and Very (1968) obtained a
well-differentiated verbal factor but less distinct
quantitative and spatial factors with girls than with
boys.”
Page
416
“The
personality variables that have been found to have modest
positive relationships to grades in mathematics courses
and/or scores on mathematics achievement tests point to a
greater sense of responsi-bility, more independence, a
higher status, and generally effective psychosocial
adjustment for high achievers in the subject (Aiken, 1963;
Cleveland & Bosworth, 1967). Students who are more
successful in mathematics are also less impulsive and more
reflective than low achievers.”
Page
416 – 417
“Special
attention
has been focused on the personalities of mathematically
gifted children, who are an important human resource. As
with gifted children in general, the mathematically gifted
tend to be
curious,
persistent,
highly intelligent, and equipped with good memories
(Duncan, 1961)”
Page
417
“It
has been observed that as youngsters the mathematically
gifted have a keen interest in mathematics and work at
this subject with pleasure and without compulsion
(Krutetskii, 1969d). In elementary school they are
typically well-adjusted, flexible, and realistic, but
highly independent and frequently unconventional in their
thoughts. But, when their independence of thought and
action is threatened, they tend to respond with hostility
and self-assertion (Haggard, 1957).”
Page
417
“From
time to time such characteristics as a fondness for music
and other arts, a great interest in chess, a tendency to
have unhappy marriages, and Anglo-Catholic religious
preferences have been at-tributed to mathematicians
(Hadamard, 1954; Smith, 1964).”
Page
419
“Newton's
genius,
which did not manifest itself during his childhood, was
encouraged and developed in large measure by his teacher
Isaac Barrow. Teachers are, of course, not the only
"situational" variables that help develop creative minds.
In the case of Norbert Wiener (1953), a stern and
demanding father played a crucial role…The homes of
mathematically creative people tend to be higher than
average in socioeconomic status, more often Protestant or
Jewish than Catholic (Helson & Crutchfield, 1970b),
and characterized by high family pressure for achievement
and parental expectations of success (Drevdahl, 1964).”
“Highly
creative
people are not usually noted for their extroversion, being
more interested in ideas than in social activities
(Cattell, 1963). A preference for working alone rather
than in a group is usually manifested by creative people,
because their goals and impulses often conflict with those
of others (Brown, 1962).”
Page
420
“As
McGannon (1972) recognizes, no one knows precisely how to
organize experiences that will foster creativity.”
Own:
He has a large bibliography about creativity.
2.2.3
1973 Honesty and the Creative Process –
Charlotte L. Doyle
September
28, 2010
Page
43
“Psychologists
don't use words like honesty and truth very often when
they describe basic psychological processes. The words are
difficult to define, almost guaranteed to make a
metaphysical mess of things. One rare exception was Max
Wertheimer. In his discussion of what he called
"productive thinking," he wrote that "the feature of
straightness, honesty, sincerity does not seem peripheral
in such a process... even seemingly mere intellectual
processes involve a human attitude, the willingness to
face issues, to deal with them frankly, honestly,
sincerely."' The essence of what I have to say in the
paper at hand is that creative artists frequently use
words like honesty and truth in describing them-selves at
work: they contrast these with lies, faking, being glossy.
They feel that honesty and truth are at the core of what
they are doing in art.”
Page 44
“I
should add that the students were quite skeptical of the
Wertheimer passage on honesty. Honesty, sincerity,
commitment to the truth could be judged to be de-sirable
personal characteristics, the students said, but they
could not be requirements of a cognitive process. An
insincere person could ar-rive at creative solutions in
art, in science, and in life, they thought.”
Page
47
“So
Joel Spiegelman spoke of composing as a moment of truth,
of his music as a mirror of himself. Jane Cooper spoke of
writing poetry as honestly confronting one's experience.
Grace Paley spoke of becoming an artist the day she
discovered an absolute compulsion to tell the truth. Those
are the data. The difficulties of understanding and
defining a quality such as honesty remains a puzzle, and
as psychologists, we have to struggle with it. Still, I
think it is important that we take seriously what the
artists say, that we not simply dismiss the result as an
inter-esting, peculiar bit of verbal behavior of three
artists. For one thing, other artists have been observed
to make similar statements. Van Gogh, William Faulkner,
Ezra Pound, and John Keats are just a few.5 It is an idea
that seems to cut across time and media. In addition, the
use of the terms like honesty and the context in which
artists use them sug-gest something about the creative
process itself.”
Page
48 – 50
This
is what it suggests to me. First, it suggests that the
product of the creative process is about something, it has
a referent, and the re-ferent is something like the
artist's experience of life, his personal vision of world
and self. The referent is not clearly there in the
beginning-not a self or an idea sitting there waiting to
be expressed. Self-expres-sion is not just a matter of
spontaneity. It is a struggle to confront one's experience
honestly. It cannot be done except in a medium, and when
the expression in a medium is finally clear, the artist
has discovered something. Grace Paley said that she writes
not when she is moved by an event but when "something
buffaloes her"; Jane Cooper talked about discovering in a
poem something you didn't know you had to say; Joel
Spiegelman spoke of reaching out, of extending yourself,
and of the difficulty of discovering the you. Second,
though honesty to experience is seen as a goal, the
relation between the work and experience is not obvious.
The honesty is not a recitation of factual reality
(Faulkner says truth doesn't have much to do with facts)
but concerns an invented reality. Is the truth a
meta-physical truth, a symbolic truth? This raises a whole
set of fascinating questions. Furthermore, all three
artists speak of dishonesty and lies and fakery in terms
of form as much as content. The use of a glossy phrase or
dramatic effects, the failure to work out an idea in terms
of what comes before or what comes after, even the use of
the word "very" where it doesn't belong--each is some sort
of dishonesty and has to be rooted out. Third, since there
is a task and a goal, a something to be expressed
honestly, the creative process (at least in the arts, but
I think also in most living cases) is a process that takes
place in time - not in seconds or minutes but in weeks and
years. Psychological analyses of creativity have used many
different temporal units. Some study the word
associa-tions that occur within seconds; others, the
problem-solving that takes place in minutes; others
describe creativity in terms of a total lifetime lived
openly, lovingly, and without neuroses. However, in terms
of art, in terms of the making of something, we are
dealing with a long but finite temporal process with a
beginning, a middle, and an end when the goal is reached.
Fourth, the creative process is an intentioned process.
Although some parts of it may involve making conscious
what has not been conscious before, the artist cannot
write a poem or paint a picture without in-tending to do
it. It takes too much time, it is too complex a task, to
do without intention. The artist must recognize himself as
someone engaged in making something, and he must commit
himself in terms of time and resources to his task.
Furthermore, it involves the artist's selecting some of
his ideas, insights, and inspirations, and rejecting
others according to his own criteria. The artists told us
that honesty and truth were basic criteria. Fifth, the
artists see honesty as more central than other
characteris-tics that are frequently mentioned as typical
of creative work: original-ity and craft. All of them had
respect for both, all spoke of the discipline needed to
master the medium and of the fun and delight in invention,
but somehow the core was honesty. Other artists have also
said similar things. Marianne Moore was quoted as saying
that "originality is a by-product of sincerity," and Ezra
Pound that "technique is a test of sincerity."6 The words
suggest that originality and craft are necessary tools for
the basic task of honest statement. We can even see the
oft-cited qualities of preference for complexity and
tolerance of ambiguity as characteristics that are
necessary because the basic task, the basic goal, requires
an honest struggle through complexity and ambiguity
without compromise or oversimplifying. Finally, some
thoughts on honesty itself, in productive thinking,
sci-ence, and art. The honesty that is the standard for
the artist is a little different from the honesty Max
Wertheimer spoke of in Productive Thinking (though I don't
think he would disagree with what follows). Wertheimer was
talking about a sincere commitment to a task, about a
willingness to face its requirements. Even the ruthless
confidence man of cliche, he who cleverly devises ways to
trick people out of their money, must honestly face the
requirements of his task: understanding the behavior of
different kinds of people, being aware of how others see
him, and so on. In the scientific enterprise, honesty
itself is one of the requirements. No matter what a
scientist's philosophy of science - ultimate truth or a
heuristic theory-he may not lie about his observations. If
dis-covered lying, he would be ostracized by the
scientific community, as Bronowski points out.7 The
artists seemed to be telling us that there is an analogous
requirement in the arts, that there is a commitment to
express in a concrete form, in a medium, a personal vision
which com-bines thinking and feeling, a view of the world
and understanding of self. They say that the work must be
honest to this vision as the report-ing of data in science
must be honest to what the scientist observes. How the
artist develops his standard, how he ferrets out his lies,
how he dredges deep for his truth- these are unanswered
questions. The scientist's data are potentially public.
But the artist's data are private. The truth or falseness
of the finished work, the empirical product, can-not even
be easily known, may never be known. Yet I think we need
to take seriously, to be informed by, what the artists
told us: that in terms of process this is the standard
they use for themselves. Not clever-ness, or skillfulness
in using the medium, or originality. Their standard is
honesty. “
Own:
Doyle referenced Max Wertheimer, Productive Thinking
(New York: Harper & Row, 1959, p 179.
2.2.4
1981 Pluralism and Truth in
Religion – Karl Jaspers on Existential Truth
June 7, 2010
Page 27
‘The present age is
most evidently a “crisis” in the popular connotation of
the word. It is a break, a separation, and thus an end and
a loss. Jaspers describes the break as “monstrous” and as
“disastrous” in its first effects.²³ “It is a period of
catastrophic descent to poverty of spirit, of humanity,
love and creative energy...as if the spirit itself has
been sucked into the technological process.”’
Page 28
‘Thus, ironically,
there has been a terrible “loss of reality in an age of
apparently heightened realism.’
Own: I do not agree
with the above at first glance. Most people accept the
reality that with an absence of a good God, terror and
violence and deceit is stronger than honesty and hard work
and creativity. It is the case because the “bad” reign
over the “good” because of the fear factor. Most people do
not “see” God therefore they accept the worldly current
reality and side with that logic in their daily actions,
in order to enjoy life and put food on the table. It
however causes creativity, mentioned in the first quote to
disappear, which causes a debt trap for a country. Without
creativity a country has to get spending power by buying
weapons or by becoming slaves.
‘The West, so to
speak, not only united the world by exporting its
technology, but simultaneously “exported to the four
corners of the earth its process of disintegration.”³⁰’
Own: Humanity
belongs to a system whereby a few (number depends on the
level of corruption) honest people innovates creative
ideas which could be the means of greater coherence in a
society. Sometimes they get sacrificed by the deceitful
groupies to benefit the groupies’ interests. Perhaps
Christianity has given the greatest protection to the
creative in monasteries and nunneries, which is partly the
reason of the innovation which took place in the West. The
Christian world is however losing this creative advantage
because individual creativity is not protected against
malicious group behaviour. The people in the nunneries and
monasteries did not have children, which could be a reason
to explain the halting of creativity along with deceit. In
the U.S.A. people had freedom to be truthful because in
their society they allowed the saying ‘Oh my God’ It
is a reflection of Revelation in the Bible and
specifically the verse which says Christ will say what the
name of God is on his return. In the Netherlands I think
the constitution put the individual’s interests equal to
that of the groupie’s interests but in South Africa the
groupies’ interest is placed above that of an individual’s
who is not part of the group who is committing sacrifice.
The groupie and the individual are therefore not treated
with equality, although they are each one person. In the
constitution of the Netherlands people are treated equally
because they get the same protection from the state,
whether he is a groupie or an individual who does not
belong to the groupie’s group. The groupie is not treated
more favourably than the individual. It is thus possible
to sacrifice a person for the good of a group if the
sacrifice cannot be classified as a criminal offence, in
South Africa. Such cases is seen as a civil matter which
would cost millions to take to court and there are many
other factors like fear which influence such cases The
inner workings of a system are not common knowledge
therefore the true treatment which the individual creators
receive is not common knowledge (I had monetary
payments/incentives and respect in mind when I wrote this
sentence.) Maybe, in all descending human systems creators
are isolated and that is the reason why humanity descends
from an apex during history. In some cases it could be the
individual creators who contribute to the descent through
their blasphemy. In ascending human systems the individual
creator is treated with due respect and due monetary gain
and he does not blaspheme. The groupie and the individual
in this sense can belong to the same group but the groupie
belongs to another group within the group, which the
individual is a member of. It is a scenario that could
even be relevant within a family. The scenario repeats
itself in many groups within groups within groups. If it
is true what I heard about the South African and
Netherlands constitutions the Netherlands constitution
compare individual with individual and the South African
constitution the individual with a group. Democratically
the South African situation does not make sense.
In the Roman
Catholic system people were removed from God. They could
only interact through the church. This removal removed
them thus also from the possibility of truthfulness
because it was part of a God which they could not interact
with except through the church. When Protestantism
appeared this barrier was removed and people could
identify more with being truthful because the church was
no longer between a person and God. This could have
perhaps been the reason for the creativity which took
place after Martin Luther’s preaching. People could
identify more with truth and the God thought. Truth
advanced logic which advanced creativity which advanced
the creation of capital.[July 9,2010]
Page 35
‘It is finally, the
modern sense of history which recapitulates and
concretizes the critically changed consciousness of reason
and freedom.’
capitulate: to
surrender, esp. under agreed conditions. (Makins, et al., 1994, p. 240)
recapitulate: to
restate the main points of an argument (Makins, et al., 1994, p. 1293)
Page 45 Chapter III
‘THE PHILOSOPHICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND TRUTH’
Own: Faith and Truth
is the names John gave to the Messiah in Revelation 19:11.
I think it was translated as Faithful and Truthful.
‘While Jaspers’
understanding of religious truth is naturally exemplified
and clarified in his explicit discussions of religion, it
is above all in certain recurring foundational ideas that
the basis for that understanding is established. It is to
those foundational ideas or, better said, that
foundational thinking,¹ that attention must now be turned
in an effort to map out the contours of the logic of
religious truth. The crisis of the present, as noted
above, consists in radical shaking of all previous
foundations and the emergence of new conditions governing
life and thought. It is that crisis, with its urgent
struggle for the recovery of faith and the unprecedented
possibility of a “common framework” for the communication
of historically heterogeneous faiths, which has determined
for Jaspers the present task of philosophical logic- -“the
discovery of a simple, essential, and comprehensive
foundational thinking.”² Said another way, while Jaspers’
philosophy proposes no one system or set of doctrines,
there is still a continually recurrent pattern of
systematically thought and controlling ideas which are its
determinative basis, “the ideas which govern its
development.”³ It is, then, these ideas or patterns of
thinking which establish the possibility of a plurality of
true religions by distinguishing between the universality
of truth in science and matters of fact and the absolute,
yet never universalizable (sic), character of truth in
matters of faith.’
Page 45 – 50
Own: John F Kane describes many complicated things around the God thought as portrayed in Revelation 19:11 but he never mentions the verse. He uses the words “f