Van Horn Robert, Klaes Matthias
University of Rhode Island, RI, USA.
J Hist Behav Sci. 2011 Summer;47(3):302-21. doi: 10.1002/jhbs.20512.
In post-Sputnik America, when many policymakers and social scientists feared the Soviet Union had a technological advantage over the United States, assessing the relative importance of patents for inventive activity and examining whether scientific research constituted a public good were paramount concerns. The neoliberals of the University of Chicago and the planners of the Cowles Commission both spoke to these issues. This paper sheds light on their views on patents and public goods in the late 1950s and early 1960s by examining representatives of Cowles and Chicago, Kenneth Arrow and Ronald Coase, respectively. Furthermore, it evaluates whether their views on patents and public goods clashed with the interests of RAND, at which both Arrow and Coase worked at some point during this time period. The paper argues that the Chicago-neoliberal position of Coase undermined the interests of RAND, while the Cowles-planning conclusions of Arrow furthered those interests.
在苏联发射人造卫星后的美国，许多政策制定者和社会科学家担心苏联在技术上比美国更具优势，此时评估专利对发明活动的相对重要性以及审视科学研究是否构成一种公共物品成为了至关重要的问题。芝加哥大学的新自由主义者和考尔斯委员会的规划者都谈到了这些问题。本文通过分别考察考尔斯委员会和芝加哥大学的代表人物肯尼斯·阿罗和罗纳德·科斯，揭示了他们在20世纪50年代末和60年代初对专利和公共物品的看法。此外，本文还评估了他们对专利和公共物品的看法是否与兰德公司的利益相冲突，在此期间阿罗和科斯都曾在兰德公司工作过一段时间。本文认为，科斯的芝加哥新自由主义立场损害了兰德公司的利益，而阿罗的考尔斯规划结论则促进了这些利益。
