STEAL THIS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

IN 1971 THE yippie radical Abbie Hoffman wrote a book advocating resistance to government, capitalism, and the “Pig Nation.” Steal This Book advocated shop-lifting, squatting, and other methods of living off other people for free. The title and the contents made the manuscript hard to peddle. But when it finally got a publisher it sold well in bookstores, which was good for Hoffman financially. It turns out that most people want to live off other people not by stealing but by paying a fair price earned by their own labors. Hoffman remarked, “It’s embarrassing when you try to overthrow the government”—and capitalism—“and you wind up on the Best Seller’s List.”

I want you or the Alzheimer’s drug that the Food and Drug Administration is “testing” in its usual bogus and unethical fashion. I want the Chinese to steal “our” intellectual property, so that consumers worldwide get stuff cheaply. I want everybody to steal every idea, book, chemical formula, Stephen Foster lyric—all of it. Steal, steal, steal. You have my official economic permission.