The gist of the research was skeptical about IP rights. Among the project’s products was a talk by German economics student Gerhard Prosi at the Caracas, Venezuela, regional meeting of the MPS in 1969 on “patents and copyrights as obstacles to development.” Prosi argued forthrightly that “no economic justification for the protection of foreign inventions in developing countries can be derived from traditional theories.” Machlup has remained an inspiration to later critics. The most radical opponents of IP in recent years, the economists Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, frame their book as a long dialogue with the Austrian neoliberal.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 184