One of the main tasks of government, Ayn Rand argues, is to recognize and protect property rights as individuals acquire new property and originate inventions. In this lesson, Dr. Ghate and Dr. Salmieri discuss Rand’s essays “The Property Status of Airwaves” and “Patents and Copyrights” and answer students’ comments. Topics covered include the issue of objectivity in the law, what should constitute property and why, the development of the concept of property and its relation to other theories, the issue of “public property,” and the concept of intellectual property.
