I want address several of the points you raise.

First, you mention that there is an overzealous emphasis in my responses on and from my personal perspective. You’d be correct about that and you’re not the first to mention it to me. However, I submit, by way of explanation, that we all see the world through our own eyes. There’s no other way to do it until I can download myself into your head. I can’t do that right now. Surely, I can imagine the perspective from your shoes, but I can’t be in your shoes. I can only interpret through the only lens I have, which is my own – apply the things I’ve read and the things I’ve seen. So if there is a personal bent that I am less than adept at covering in my prose, that’s unfortunate, if only because it undermines my voice. I should probably look into my writing style to figure out how to fix that.

Second, you mention that I have no understanding of capitalism and market forces. You are correct there, also. I have no formal education about these things. I’ve only read, watched, and responded to my environment. I only know what I see. I know that it sucks hard to want something and not be able to afford it, especially when that’s something like information. I know that my education cost me more money than I could afford, which went against the message of my education: knowledge should be freely available because it is essential to human endeavor. I have a hard time reconciling that disconnect, the fact that I had to pay thousands of dollars to be told I shouldn’t have to pay thousands of dollars. I know that my parents work for a living, and work too hard. I know that my sister is a waitress who can’t afford to go to school because tuition costs so much that she can’t pay it. I know that keeping people stupid has benefits to smart people trying to sell things to stupid people. I know that it doesn’t cost anything to distribute digital work on the internet. I know that as long as the cost of education is so high (and it’s getting higher every day), that there will be many people who cannot afford it and won’t know how to reach for something better. That’s what I know. What I know is separate from what I believe.

What I believe is that information should be free, or as free as possible, because people will not improve themselves or improve things for others if they don’t have the skills and knowledge to do that. I believe that withholding information from people that might improve their lives is wrong, because it keeps them too stupid to know how to help themselves. I don’t believe that information is property.

However, at the end of the day, my voice isn’t the only one that matters. I don’t think that people have to listen to me like I’m some guru. I want people to think for themselves, and learn as much as they can in order to do that. I’m not trying to steal other people’s ideas or content. I’m trying to influence them to think about another way.

But that’s tit for tat. So, you say that I don’t understand anything about market forces or how capitalism really works. You say that people have tried to give me a basic understanding and that I haven’t listened. I don’t know what you’re talking about. All people have done is tell me I don’t know about capitalism and called me a communist, which doesn’t help anybody. If anything, pointing out perceived flaws without offering solutions will only cement me in my position.

So, Steven, if you know about capitalism and how the market works: teach me. I’m willing to learn. Give me a list of books to read and I’ll trot down to the local library and read them. Write a post explaining the basic concepts on your site or guest post on mine. I’ll host it. I’m happy to do that, because if I truly don’t know anything, then I want to correct that.

Educate me, Steven. I’ll listen. If my lack of knowledge is the problem here, then help me fix it.

Seriously, though, I have no problem with any scheme for the dynamic pricing of content, or with the creator giving it away for free, or whatever. The only problem I saw, and the only thing I was responding to, was the attack on property rights inherent in the statement that profits must be fair or reasonable.

It may seem unfair to hijack these various threads and try to turn them into political venues, but the concept of property rights is crucial to the existence of civilization. I believe we probably invented language to settle property disputes.

“Grok, that MY bone-crushing-to-get-marrow-out rock!”
“Not! You put down!”
“Me not care! Still MY rock!”

It is true, of course, that poverty is inextricably bound up in the concept of property rights, and that any society which allows its citizens to own property is a society with poverty. If “The Gods Must be Crazy” teaches us anything, it is that property is a grave responsibility.

But rule number one, life’s Standing Order Number One, is “Always identify the problem.” The problem here is not that some people have something (in this case, writers have intellectual properties), while others do not. As long as two people are still alive and breathing, there will be disparities in property. The problem arises whenever anyone, ANYONE, anywhere, attempts to tell another person what he can or cannot do with his property. This is an attack on property rights, and that makes it an attack on the most basic foundation of civilization.

You DO have the right to give your work away free. You DO have the right to set up any kind of sliding scale or dynamic pricing you see fit. You DO have the right to make one, hand-made copy and sell it for ten billion dollars. You DO have the right to write as much as you see fit, or as little, or to not write at all. Do you really want to live in a society that denies you any or all of these rights?

Whether any of these things (or any other things that you have the right to do) is moral or ethical is not an issue, you have the right. You have the right to let your neighbor’s dog starve to death in his own back yard because the neighbor went to Grandma’s house and got snowed in. Is it moral? Of course not. Let the dog starve, and every single person you know will condemn you for it, but you do have the right to do it.

If I wrote a novel, and then deleted it unpublished, undistributed, unread by any eyes except mine, no one would say I had no right to do that. They might say it was unfair, or that I was crazy, or any one of a number of other more-or-less irrelevant responses, but I don’t think anyone would seriously assert that I had no right.

If I sell the one and only copy of the same novel to you for ten billion dollars, I have the right to do that, even if it seems unfair to the other six billion people on Earth.

I hate go back in the direction of Marxism vs capitalism again, but at its root, that’s what this discussion is about. A society that says writers can’t make “unreasonable” profits from the distribution of their property is one short, muddy slope away from a society that says no one can profit “unreasonably” from the distribution of any kind of property at all.

The second (which relates to the first) is your failure to respect personal freedom in this equation. By your own words:

“For me, right now, that means I can release what I can for free, even though I have to spend the majority of my time at a day job. That day job severely limits the amount of time I have to produce content and release it. However, that job also provides me with an income, so I can afford to release my content for free.”

Exactly; for you! You get to make these decisions about your writing and the value it has to you. I’m with you on this one; if someone wants to read the crap I write then I am more than happy to share it with them. I have a job that pays me quite well, I write because I have to write to stay sane. If one or two people enjoy my work, that is a bonus. The thing is, that is what you and I choose. We do not get to choose for Levi or anyone else for that matter.

To frame this in a completely different way I offer this:

There is a guy named Luke and works some bullshit job for minimum wage. Now Luke is a smart guy and he works hard at his job. One day Luke figures out a way that the company he works for can save a shit load of money and reduce the company’s carbon footprint. Luke is so excited that he tells his co-worker, Levi, all about this great idea one day at lunch. Luke goes home that weekend and writes the whole thing down in a nice memo to the boss. Monday morning as Luke is waiting for the morning meeting to be over so he can submit his memo; the boss announces a great new program the company is launching. This program will save the company a shit lad of money and is environmentally friendly to boot. The boss goes on to say that Levi will be promoted and get a fat ass raise because the whole thing was his idea. Fortunately for Levi, Luke is the kind of guy who just wanted to be efficient and help stop global warming.

Ideas have value and depriving another person of their value is theft. You might be okay with people stealing from you but I have a problem with it. Since we do not live in a fascist dictatorship or a Marxist utopia; I get to choose what value of my ideas and creations. The market may or may not validate my assessment but the initial determination is mine.