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Samizdata quote of the day It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC’s demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation
– Frank Zappa discussing the Parents Music Resource Center, a pro-censorship group lead by Al Gore’s wife, Tipper Gore
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Zappa was wrong. All they wanted was a label on the cellophane wrapper saying the record contained profanity. No one was being prevented from buying anything. Purchasers would have had a small increment of additional information. If some teenager’s Mom refused to buy a record on this basis, big deal. The kid would have some forbidden fruit to look forward to when she turned 18, or whatever.
All they wanted was a label on the cellophane wrapper saying the record contained profanity.
That was their stated position but this was really all about political posturing as part of the culture wars and tarring the whole of the music business with selective use of lyrics produced by some artists in some songs. FZ had the courage to stand up and expose this for what it really was. Do you really think the PMRC would have got a hearing if the prime movers were not politicos wives? This is a classic example of corrupt DC time wasting.
If it was just about putting a warning sticker on any album containing any of the seven bad words the PMRC should have stated this more clearly and without veering off the point.
Above all I don’t see why government intervention was required at all – the market could have sorted it out.
Above all I don’t see why government intervention was required at all – the market could have sorted it out.
The market WASN’T sorting it out – there wasn’t perfect information. So there wasn’t a free market.
So what do you think should be done when markets aren’t meeting one of the requirements for a free market? Should government:
1) Require that corporations meet that requirement if it is a simple and inexpensive change to make to meet it or
2) Let corporations do as they please, free markets be damned or
3) Something else?
Quite right. Read the full transcript – sorry I do not have the link but you can search it easy enough. Zappa asked a number of incisive questions, in his own quirky style, and clarified the thrust of the whole thing. Had he not done so who knows what would have ensued.
Markets do not require ‘perfect information’. Frankly that is a bizarre notion. Moreover if people really want to find out about the content of music before purchasing it, all they have to do is avail themselves of the music press and read a review of the album. And of course now all you need to do is Google the damn thing.
If someone cannot be bothered then clearly they do not really care after all and that does not consititute a ‘market failure’.
That was all they wanted, but it wasn’t all they hoped to achieve. The point of requiring those labels was that many large stores – both Wal-Mart and K-Mart, for example, at the time – would refuse to stock records with such a label on the cover, leading to many people being effectively prevented from buying what they wanted to buy. It’s constructive censorship. Zappa was spot on.
What do you mean “All they wanted”? If that became mandated by law, then to accept that is to accept that politics do have a role in deciding how people evaluate music. That is not a minor matter.
Wal-Mart and K-Mart have every right to institute whatever policies they wish regading what they stock. In fact if those companies demanded CDs have a ‘content warning label’ before they stock something, that is fine by me (and no doubt fine by independent CD retailers too!) just so long as the content warning label is not imposed by the state.
The issuing of labelling albums came up due to market demands made by the PMRC. The problem was that Congress, instead of telling the PMRC to go away and talk to the music industry, decided to get involved. The instant that Congress gets involved the market halts innovation because there is the risk that whatever innovation they might have come up without interference will be on the wrong side of what politicians decide so they wait and see what the politicians decide.
A terrible example of this politically imposed market paralysis is the introduction of extra security or tracking devices on shipping containers. Shipping companies were mulling the introduction of barcodes, RFID tags, GPS devices and other new technology before 9-11. After 9-11 the manufacturers of these devices stepped up their lobbying efforts. The lobbyists have cancelled each other out resulting in no action from Congress, meanwhile shipping companies do not want to risk the considerable investment that extra security would require in case Congress mandates another system.
The market might not always be “perfect” but it is always better than politicians.
Felix, the three choices you give instantly give away your prejudices. Corporations are not the only party in the market – what about the consumers? They have power. If the PMRC had arranged a boycott rather than crying off to their hubbies in Congress they would probably have got what they wanted sooner – that’s a market solution!
Yes, could have phrased it better. The exploitation of this fact by what was essentially a state body, the PMRC, in their attempt to require all “profane” records to carry the label, in full knowledge, presumably, of the policies of Wal-Mart and K-Mart among others, and thereby limiting the supply of such records, particularly in smaller towns that may not have independent record shops, was what I considered constructive censorship, not the refusal of the stores to stock profane records, which is their prerogative.
Wasn’t Tipper also in the vanguard of the folks warning us about the hidden satanic messages our children were hearing by playing albums backward? Interesting family the Gores, eccentric to say the least. And a very big bullet we dodged — barely! — in the 2000 elections.
Markets do not require ‘perfect information’
Markets don’t. Free markets do. Provably so. It doesn’t seem from your post that you understand the distinction between the two, or even that you understand that there is a distinction between the two. Which is odd, since the disctinction between the two is one of the most interesting topics in economics.
Free markets are provably the most efficient solution. Markets without perfect information are provably inefficient.
What do we do when markets aren’t free (and so aren’t efficient)? Well if we don’t even understand the problem, we probably don’t do a good job solving it, do we?
None that that makes any sence. Information is never perfect in any social situation. Free markets work just fine with imperfect information.
Information is never perfect in any social situation.
Then none of the mathematical argument explaining why free markets are efficient is of any use, since it rests on an assumption that is always false. Why should we trust markets, then, if we can’t prove they are an efficient solution?
Free markets work just fine with imperfect information
You’ve linked to someone trying, and failing miserably, to argue with someone who won a Nobel prize for explaining why markets don’t work just fine with imperfect information. An own goal, I’d say.
Hardly. ‘Perfect Information’ is as absurd at ‘market equilibrium’ (something with the life span of a Mayfly). Several value judgements are based on so many un-modelable factors that most of the so complex mathematical modelling so beloved to so many economists are little more than the modern version of Kabalistic charts seeking to explain the universe.
“Perfect information is absurd”
Yeah, but reliable information is not. How does letting scoundrels manipulate a market lead to wealth creation and survival of the most efficient producers? How does it help a market when a portion is allowed to compete dishonestly? If record stores allowed the records to be returned when they were found to be tosh, you might have a point.
By the way, as I recall, Tipper did her thang in 1988 when Algore was running for the democrat nomination. She toned it down big time in 1992 and as I recall, went so far as a grovelling apology to the music pornographists in 2000.
Hardly. ‘Perfect Information’ is as absurd at ‘market equilibrium’ (something with the life span of a Mayfly). Several value judgements are based on so many un-modelable factors that most of the so complex mathematical modelling so beloved to so many economists are little more than the modern version of Kabalistic charts seeking to explain the universe.
Yet that mathematical modelling is what any rationalist belief that markets are efficient is based on. You have already implicitly denied the existence of free markets. Why should anyone believe in the efficiency of markets at all? Faith?
Indeed but we are discussing “perfect information”.
Unless fraud is involved, one man’s manipulation is another man’s marketing. If there is demand for information on a product, ask the the market will provide. In this case it is called The Music Press.
Tosh. Mathematical models are only as good as the data they are based on and the quality of the assumption made about it. When so much of that is unknowable, mathematical models of social phenomina are correspondingly based on guess work. You do not need mathematical models to form critical preferences for rational theories.
Observation and reason… no math required.
Just as I do not need a mathematical model to form a rational theory that when I drop a coffee cup, it will probably fall to the floor, I also do not need a mathematical model to understand the psychology behind, say, a backward bending demand curve. All I need is a collection of good theories about human behaviour.
A warning label on a CD isn’t censorship, and Tipper had a good precedent to point to: movie ratings. Now there’s even TV ratings, since there’s so much trash on TV now.
A CD warning label or TV/movie/video game rating or a V-Chip or computer safe-browsing program are all fine by me. It helps my buying decisions as I buy gifts for my nieces and nephews.
I think warning labels on CDs really improve marketing, because rebellious adolescents want naughty music to flip the bird to their parents. It helps their buying decision too.
I remember my college students playing an NWA tape on a roadtrip we were on…I was surprised at the lyrics, but it was funny too, I didn’t care and wasn’t offended. I kept reacting like, “OMG! I can’t believe they just said that!” The students laughed at my reaction. They said, “Don’t worry, the next one’s a love song.” That song had lyrics like “suck it like a chicken bone” and “You know I want to f*ck with you.” They also told me what NWA stood for. It was really funny and memorable, lo even all these years later.
So, such warnings and ratings actually improve market functioning because it increases information and makes the negotiation (marketing/sale) less asymmetrical. Remember, the government isn’t doing the censoring, it’s self-policing by the industries themselves, in response to consumer demand. Hence, no censorship.