And then they'd be off and reconstructed wherever it was that their coordinates had
specified. So, the question now becomes, let's go
back to Nicole's, excuse me, to Simone's dormitory room and ask whether indeed
Simone has the right to use a transporter machine in her room.
And of course, this question doesn't make a great deal of sense at first glance,
because, of course, there are no real transporter machines; they're just a
figment of our imagination, at least until this point.
And so, because there is no transporter machine, no one's ever really tried to
assert the right to use one in Simone's room.
Simone has never tried to use it, nor has anyone in Mike's crew ever tried to use
it. Indeed, no one has ever tried to use the
machine in her room, because there is no such machine.
But let's suppose that in the near future somebody is actually able to construct a
transporter machine that operates in the way that I've described.
And Simone happens to come into possession of one of these machines and asks to use
it in her room. Well, indeed, she doesn't ask.
What she does is to simply use it, and when she uses it as you've seen, it makes
that noise. And when it makes that noise, we'll
hypothesize, Simone's next door neighbor comes knocking on her door, and says, that
machine you're using in there Simone. It's pretty noisy, and when you use it,
it's hard for us to study in our rooms. So would you please refrain from using the
machine? Simone perhaps wanting to keep good
relations with her neighbors might agree to that in which case the dispute would be
resolved and Simone might go back and think that she has surrendered her
interest to the interest of her neighbors and done that to keep the peace
Alternatively, Simone may decide well, it's my room, I'd like to use a
transporter machine. Let's hypothesize that transporter
machines are not illegal. Sso, without anyone else to tell her that
she can't do it, Simone says, it's my room, I'll use the transporter machine if
I'd like. And, if you can't study1 while I'm using
the machine, because of the noise, well, generally, that's tough.
If Simone take's this point of view then the neighbors may decide to yield.
Well, okay Simone, we'll recognize your right to do this just to keep the peace.
But they too may say, no sir, we don't want to submit to this.
We expect to be able to use our room in the way that we contracted with Mike to
use the room. We expect to be able to study and Simone,
by using the transporter machine, has made it impossible for us to do so.
And so what will happen? They'll have to get somebody to say, who
has the right to use the transporter machine?
If Simone gets the right to use the transporter machine, she can use it
whether her neighbors object to it or not. But if her neighbors get the right to use
the transporter machine in Simone's room, then they can exercise that property right
negatively and exclude Simone from using the transporter machine in what would
otherwise be her room. How, typically, do we find out who is the
proper owner or the initial owner of the transporter machine right?
Well,in the United States we typically go to a legal authority as we'll hypothesize
in the next lecture of court. And so we can image that courts make
decisions to resolve disputes like those between Simone and her neighbors over the
operation of the transporter machine over and over and over again.
And when those disputes are resolved, the judge makes an authoritative decision,
either that Simone has the property right to use the transporter machine in her
room, without the consent or permission of her neighbors.
Or alternatively that the neighbors have the right to keep Simone from using a
transporter machine in her room without the permission of the neighbors.
We can imagine that the judges have sitting in their chambers a quiver of
empty, non-assigned property rights, a quiver of arrows that have no labels on
them. But once a decision is made, in the
dispute between Simone and her neighbors over who has the right to use the
transporter machine in Simone's room. The effect of that decision would have
been that the judge would have taken one of those arrows out of the quiver in her
chambers. Put a label on that arrow that says, the
bearer of this arrow has the right to use the transporter machine in the, in
Simone's room. And then, the judge, by deciding the case
would have given that arrow, given that property right to one or another of the
contesting parties. That's how new property rights are
created. And in the next lecture, I'll expand on
this idea and suggest a surprising result about the creation of new property rights.