This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, October 20, 2008. I'm Caleb Brown.

Much information is more freely available than it ever has been, but more and more information that will be valuable to the world in years to

come is classified or designated as private property.

Robert Laughlin, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, believes that the information economy will mean bad things

for the ability of individuals to own their own creativity.

He details his thoughts in his new book, The Crime of Reason. We spoke following a Cato book forum on October 10th.

You said in your presentation that you're an optimist, but you also had some pretty down things to say.

When you talk about science interacting with intellectual property

and our ability to continue creating freely.

Don't you think it's at some point inevitable that law itself is going to bend to the needs of science?

Great question.

No, and that's one of the reasons I was driven to write a book actually.

And the The political issue of slavery never got resolved legally.

It was just too valuable economically.

And so the only way to solve the problem was to have a terrible war.

That is an example of how certain kinds of conflicts between rights issues on the one hand and economic issues on the other have no solution except through violence.

Now what I suspect is that this conflict that we have now between intellectual property rights

on the one hand and artistic rights and the other or right to learn is another one of those issues

that has no solution.

I also think that it will not end in violence and the reason why not

is that when push comes to shove what people really care about most is the

security of their homes and families and well-being, physical well-being, and they will

...