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But if there was no IP, the valuation of a business becomes more independent of its past accomplishments, and rests more on its ability to keep producing new ones. It would destroy the ability for vulture capital firms to buy up a business with promising IP, fire all the innovators, run it into the ground while extracting maximum rents, and then sell of just the IP later, for example. Removing IP law would change the balance of power between middlemen and producers, to the benefit of producers.
You say that executives determine all of corporate spending, but that's missing the deeper point-- that some proportion of business spending is allocated towards productive investments, but that executives use the power inequalities between them and their consumers/producers to claw away rents for their own personal benefit. I'm talking about corporate money spent on making impressive executive offices, building new corporate headquarters closer to where they live, buying prestige-enhancing charity products, etcetera. And like you mentioned, re: inefficient firms, the ability for executives to do this is a direct result of corporate bureaucracy and much of corporate bureaucracy exists because of IP law. Paying people to file IP claims raises the "value" of a company, but has no material effect on its ability to actually produce a product.
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