Massie on IP and the Jones Act

by Stephan Kinsella on March 29, 2026

Lots of libertarians adore Congressman Thomas Massie. It’s not quite clear why; he never claims to be a libertarian.

“Massie describes himself as a constitutional conservative. He believes in intellectual property and thinks it is necessary for incentivizing innovation. Massie has remarked that this is one of the areas where he is not a libertarian.”https://t.co/SQY94D56ns

“I like to point…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) June 15, 2024

From Wikipedia:

Massie describes himself as a constitutional conservative. He believes in intellectual property and thinks it is necessary for incentivizing innovation. Massie has remarked that this is one of the areas where he is not a libertarian.

Constitution, eh? It’s the authorization for a state. It’s not some positive thing.¹ Too many libertarians are under the delusion that the Constution’s purpose is to protect rights. It’s not. It’s to create and empower a new, central state—with some paper limits ostensibly to prevent this new agency from itself violating more rights than necessary. The US Constitution—any “constitution”—at best, only has instrumental value, to the extent it can be appealed to, to keep the state under some limits.² In any just world, it would have negative connotations, as it does in L. Neil Smith’s alternate history libertarian sci-novel Tom Paine Maru: “‘Constitution, Lucille,’ It was the first time that I had sworn in Confederate.” (( See KOL359 | State Constitutions vs. the Libertarian Private Law Code (PFS 2021). )) (Ironically, Smith, like other “libertarian” novelists, was … pro-IP. Sigh.³ What’s the saying from Upton Sinclair? “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”) As ole’ Spooner said, “the Constitution … has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”⁴

The US Constitution is in no wise libertarian. Massie seems to recognize this, but is fine with it:

“I like to point out that intellectual property, in itself, is sort of an antilibertarian thing,” says Massie, 41, who describes himself as a “constitutional conservative” within the Republican Party. “But it’s in the U.S. Constitution. It’s there as a pragmatic concession to promoting invention. It motivates progress. … Ironically, it’s one of the examples where I am not a libertarian.”⁵

It’s no wonder he’s bad on IP but at least he recognizes it’s unlibertarian. (Ironically, IP—at least, copyright—is unconstitutional, but he doens’t seem to know or care; I guess even for a Constitutionalist if you have to choose between your beloved Constitution and your beloved IP, you choose … IP.))⁶

But yeah, he is bad on IP.

I’m appalled by testimony I heard in today’s Intellectual Property Subcommittee hearing on U.S. Int’l Trade Commission laws.

Witnesses suggested “public interest” justifies allowing corporations to ripoff American inventors by importing patent-infringing knockoffs from China. pic.twitter.com/BJegtN3LXF

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 23, 2024

⁷

Oh well, it’s just one deviation. Everyone is entitled to one, right? (plus a pass for their wife) At least he’s a libertarian. Wait, no, a … Constitutionalist. But at least he’s good on other things.

But wait. Here he is in the abominable Jones Act:

My district has 250 miles of the Ohio River with 3 dams, city water intakes & a dozen bridges.

The Jones Act requires shipping on inland waterways to be conducted with vessels built, registered & crewed in the United States.

I support the Jones Act even if it’s “protectionist.”

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 26, 2024

Even Grok knows it’s unlibertarian: The Jones Act “is textbook protectionism and cronyism. The law uses government coercion to shield a tiny, inefficient U.S. maritime industry (shipbuilders, unions, and operators) from foreign competition.” Free market libertarians know this.⁸ Even Cato knows this⁹—although, interestingly, one of the authors of the Cato study criticizing the Jones Act, Daniel Ikenson, was in favor of the terrible, pro-IP TPP.¹⁰ But Cato has long been schizo on IP; it has lots of Big Pharma donors who love patents, don’tcha know, such as—allegedly—Eli Lilly & Company, Merck & Company and Pfizer, Inc.; even the formerly principled anti-IP Tom Palmer of Cato, whose great work on IP helped change my mind, well, his views have … “evolved.”¹¹

Hey, come to think of it, as great as Spooner was, he was … also confused and bad onIP.¹² Hmm. I’m starting to see a common thread here. Could it be … the Lockean-Marxian labor theory of property/value and Lockean/libertarian creationism? The mistake that permeates everything…? (( Rothbard on the Main Fallacy of our Time: Marx’s Labor Theory of Value; KOL 037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory; KOL483 | The Economics and Ethics of Intellectual Property, Loyola University—New Orleans; Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and “Rearranging”; Locke, Smith, Marx; the Labor Theory of Property and the Labor Theory of Value; and Rothbard, Gordon, and Intellectual Property; Libertarian and Lockean Creationism: Creation As a Source of Wealth, not Property Rights; Hayek’s “Fund of Experience”; the Distinction Between Scarce Means and Knowledge as Guides to Action. And related to all this: The Structural Unity of Real and Intellectual Property; The “Ontology” Mistake of Libertarian Creationists; Objectivists: “All Property is Intellectual Property”; A Recurring Fallacy: “IP is a Purer Form of Property than Material Resources”; Stephan Kinsella, “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), Part IV.I. In particular, references in notes 75-76 et pass. ))