Property, Efficiency, the Commons, and Theft

Abstract

It is easy to get the impression from reading economics that property generally, and property in ideas in particular, is efficient. This impression is meaningful because it suggests that there is no efficiency rationale for government regulation of any kind other than the institution and defense of a property system itself. The purpose of this Chapter is to explain why this impression is false. The Chapter shows that two stories economists tell about the efficiency of property, the Tragedy of the Commons and what I call the Parable of Theft, do not establish that property or intellectual property is efficient.