Freedom to Steal
Let’s butcher some T.S. Eliot:
One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a [nation]] is the way in which a [nation] borrows. Immature [nations] imitate; mature [nations] steal; bad [nations] deface what they take, and good [nations] make it into something better, or at least something different. The good [nation] welds [its] theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad [nation] throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good [nation] will usually borrow from [nations] remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.
Or, if we butcher the most common butchering of this passage:
Good [nations] borrow, great [nations] steal.
While no one actually ever said this, the point is true, for nations if not poets. The road to greatness is paved with theft. Moreover, a nation that selectively encourages creative theft by its citizenry can adapt faster than nations that don’t. If you live in the anarchy that governs the world, where nations are governed by the law of the jungle, this is not only a matter of prosperity but a matter of survival. Originality is a luxury for the wealthy and comfortable. However, wealth and comfort were usually erected on a foundation of original theft and those that lose touch with the grubby reality of their ancestor’s original climb up the greasy pole often find themselves at a disadvantage when the grubbiness returns with a vengeance.
Not all theft is good. The line between what is good theft and what is bad theft seems to be drawn at the point where the material world ends and the immaterial world begins. Stealing the physical is bad. Stealing immaterial ideas is good. The best of both worlds is:
- Stealing ideas and profiting.
- Securing any profits against theft.
Seeking to keep ideas from others to keep an advantage is an old stratagem:
19. Now no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears.”
20. So all Israel went down to the Philistines, each to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, and his hoe.
21. The charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to fix the hoes.
22. So it came about on the day of battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, but they were found with Saul and his son Jonathan.
1 Samuel 13:19 (NASB)
The Philistines, while lacking an appreciation for art, did have a keen appreciation for knowledge that bestowed power. Keeping the knowledge of iron working away from the Twelve Tribes not only gave the Philistines an advantage over the hill folk of Israel, it allowed them collect rents on selling goods and services bundled with less threatening consumer iron products. When the Israelites finally acquired iron working, this advantage went away and the Philistines found themselves under effective Israelite attack and rule in the following generations. Secrecy is fragile, advantage is transitory, and betting on control of one technology for too long only leaves you vulnerable to the next big thing. Far better to be looking to steal the next advantage.
The United States in the nineteenth century was notorious for what is today called intellectual property theft. European works that enjoyed some kind of intellectual protection at home found themselves at the mercy of unscrupulous Americans in the New World. A real American hero here is Samuel Slater. American textile makers were desperate for knowledge about British textile manufacture. Slater, having completed an apprenticeship to a major textile manufacturer, took them up on their offer and slipped away to America with the plans for British textile technology stowed away in a place no one could see: his memory. Slater aided the construction of many American textile plants in Connecticut and eventually set up his own. Slater, a high class thief, prospered and died a millionaire when that meant something. Furthermore, the nation he assisted prospered mightily from his theft.
The Egyptians grew powerful from Mesopotamian innovations, the Phoenicians grew powerful from Egyptian innovations, the Greeks grew powerful from Phoenician innovation, the Romans grew powerful from Greek innovations, the Arabs grew powerful from Roman innovations, the Italians grew powerful from Arab innovations, the Portuguese grew powerful from Italian innovations, the Spanish grew powerful from Portuguese innovations, the Dutch grew powerful from Spanish innovations, the English grew powerful off Spanish innovations, the Scottish grew powerful off English innovations, and the Americans grew powerful from the Scottish. Now the cycle is repeating with China and India.
The key to power is not the redistribution of power to the innovator. The key to power is the redistribution of power to those who can fully exploit the innovation. The key to power is not the original conception of an idea. The key to power is taking an idea and adapting it to fit the needs of the unfolding environment. It’s not the observation that dominates the OODA loop, it’s orientation. Successful orientation is successful adaptation and the more that observation is freed to survey the environment, the greater the chance for successful adaption. The vast majority of successful adaptions and innovations happen elsewhere. “Not invented here” is the road to maladaption and eventual system death in the ten thousand cuts of an unfriendly environment. Ideas are what you make of them.
Every nation has risen to power through extensive and institutionalized theft from the incumbent power. Once it reaches the point where it is producing its own innovations, it switches to a defensive position of protecting its own secret sauce. It becomes locked into the particular bundle of stolen ideas and local optimizations that got it there. Once you become locked into the defense on a system-wide scale, you can only sit there and be sapped by internal parasites and external theft. The road after that is the road to national decrepitude. America is walking that path now while challengers are merely selectively picking off American innovations. A higher dedication to theft may help avert the inevitable landslide. That would involve, however, scraping off an enormous number of rent seekers and usually the only thing that can accomplish that is catastrophic shock on a level the United States hasn’t seen since the depths of the Great Depression.
