Kicking Away the Ladder

Chomsky absolutely nails the explanation of why “Buy One, Get One” does not generally exist with regard to public access to publicly-funded innovation, and gives us another awesome metaphor-weapon in the battle against bad IP policy.

… Friedrich List, famous German political economist in the 19th century, who was actually borrowing from Andrew Hamilton, called it “kicking away the ladder.” First you use state power and violence to develop, then you kick away those procedures so that other people can’t do it….