The social sciences have made less progress than the natural sciences; and the application of social science ideas tends to be much less well developed than the application of natural science ideas. There are several explanations for this. One, which might be offered by unfriendly critics, is that social scientists just aren't as good as the physicists and chemists are. Certainly, we don't have as much in the way of resources to play around with.

Another explanation is that the problems are inherently harder. I don't see how anybody who is familiar with modern physics could actually believe this, but the explanation is sometimes offered. In this paper I want to focus on a third reason: the incentive system for funding the producing and applying of ideas in the fields of the social studies is weaker than that in the natural science area. Put simply, without property rights in ideas, the market cannot adequately produce and develop ideas. What we need is a patent system for ideas, or its equivalent.

In my opinion, the invention of the patent was an important, even vital, step in the development of modern technology. Consider the patent system in some old-fashioned field, like mechanics. First, there is an incentive for inventing new ideas because they can be patented. Perhaps more important than this incentive actually to invent new ideas in a direct sense is the secondary incentive to entrepreneurial activity. Once the idea has been invented, it must then be sold, and frequently more resources are invested in that and the profits from it are markedly greater than from the invention itself.