If I had been the first man to wear clogs, should all men on the surface of the earth be compelled to go barefoot by law?

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 207 to 210 (in French)
January 22nd, 1848

In this letter to Marcellin Jobard, Frédéric Bastiat delves into the issue of intellectual property, obviously following a question from Mr. Jobard about what his position is on the topic. To start with, Frédéric Bastiat warns that he does “not have very fixed ideas on the topic that would allow him to have influence”. I have to admit that I found the topic very tricky as well and that, if legislation has evolved over the last 170 years, the answers that are in place are not very satisfactory (the length of copyright after the death of an author seems absolutely outrageous to me for instance).

At the time, Frédéric Bastiat thought that the question came down to two essential items, viz. the legitimacy of intellectual property (which he believed to be real) and its application by the law (which is a competence of government). What today’s quote shows are the ethical issues we encounter still nowadays in the pharmaceutical industry (and beyond but they are particularly sensitive there) and the question of the status that copy could or should have. Indeed, we can appreciate with the example of the clogs that the rights on intellectual property cannot extend to infinity and this is exactly what is facing the pharmaceutical industry. Once a molecule, be it “miraculous” or not, has been discovered, to what extent should a monopoly be granted to the inventor? Is it fair that men cannot benefit from a known cure for the simple reason that it is forbidden to copy it while the price of the original is prohibitive? I do not have satisfactory answers to these questions but, given the current distorsions of competitive approach in the pharmaceutical industry (which are reflected in the regulatory costs of development and the absolutely fabulous profits observed on some molecules), I believe that the topic desserves to be studied further nowadays still.