UN Flunks Economics Again

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
NYE:

There are many different forms, manifestations, and influences on culture. All of these factors change over time. (Perhaps this is more apparent to a nation of immigarnts, such as America.) My decision to visit a museum, listen to a concert, or watch a foreign film instead of sitting at home with Fox TV helps define American culture. Why can't people choose what they like and make of culture what they wish?

CanCon does not mandate what each Canadian listens to or watches at any given minute. We may listen to American top 40, watch a Hollywood movie, or switch to an American station. If we don't like what we are hearing or seeing, we move the dial or change the channel.

What CanCon does mandate is that there will be a place for Canadian productions on Canadian airwaves (Canadian stations). In that way, we actually do get a broader choice.

Are you afraid of the competition?

edit:
More to the point, why to Gordon Lightfoot, Art Garfunkel, or their successors need protecting? There's plenty of people willing to hear a good folk singer. The French nature movie March of the Penguins did a great box office here (we've seen it twice). And I was rather convinced by Rufus' argument that specialization allowed the French cinema to improve.

Art Garfunkle is a Yank.

[notyoueither]

Why does Boeing need protecting?

There are plenty of good aircraft manufacturers.

The top planes from Sukoi and MiG should suit the US airforce well, shouldn't they?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
I personally don't understand such a stance coming from Canada. What culture do you have to protect? You're American already in everything but name...

It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant some seemingly informed Americans are.

Come live in an igloo and eat whale blubber with us!

[Drake Tungsten]

I know plenty of Canadians. The fact that they are basically Americans becomes pretty clear if you observe them in a foreign land, isolated from the great mass of deluded Canucks who've convinced themselves that there is some sort of substantive difference between American and Canadian culture.

Same goes for Kiwis and their view of Australia.

[KrazyHorse]

pffffffffft

[KrazyHorse]

Next up:

the Belgians and the French
the Irish and the English
the Serbs and the Croats...

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Cyclotron
I would argue that there isn't in effect much difference between restricting a certain kind of music to X amount of air time and completely banning it. In either case, the government is intervening in a place where I feel it should not be, by telling media stations - and, by extension, me - what the government thinks is best for me, or best for the nation. Censorship, perhaps, was not the right word.

I would argue that the difference might sound not so big in theory (your argument is conceptual, rather than empirical). In effect, I can assure you that you have as much choice with quotas than wthout them, as long as the quotas aren't overwhelming. The radio stations had to expand their range of musical offer with the quotas, not restrict it (remember: most radios are inclined to air the same crap over and over - with the quotas, they had to add many new titles to their playlist, and it even took a time before a French crap industry kicked in).
NYE explains how the Canadian policies actually helped people to choose.

As per the international role, you are clearly much more well versed on this than I, so I have little to say. However, I don't agree with the "GATS" as per your description - I should think that France should be allowed to subsidize, categorically, what it wants. That is an issue for the French people to decide, and nobody else. If that were what this UNESCO convention was defending - the right of governments to freely subsidize who they want to - then I would be in total agreement. However, the agreement as it stands goes far beyond that (I'm not sure if it even covers that specific issue), to conceivably limit our exports. That's when this whole thing does become a trade issue, and that is when it falls out of the jurisdiction of UNESCO, IMO.

I understand what you mean. However, I'd argue that protectionism is absolutely essential to maintain a lively culture with modern media, because of two things:
- modern media is strongly dependent of marketing. The great majority of people won't see or hear modern media if they aren't made aware of it, and if they aren't made willing to watch or hear it*.
- the American entertainment industry is very aggressive in terms of marketing, notably because it produces blockbusters, and because the American culture is currently the only one that can reasonably expect to be successful in the domestic market of every country.

American movies also enjoy economis of scale thanks to that fact. When TVs want to broadcast a movie or a series, they can easily find an American one that is cheap. The US has a large range of products, where the investment has already been returned, and are as such much cheaper to buy, as well as very easy to find. Nothing like the hassle associated with creating your own TV series, or buying a movie/series from an ailing market, where the producer of the movie is counting on you specifically to return his investment.
This is why, when I was in Germany, I got to barely see any German culture on commercial TV. This is why the French commercial TV, when it's not entirely Americanized (there are no quotas on TV), is extremely conservative and only airs tried-and-true formulas.

it's unfortunate that a world body must force a convention that, when viewed by people like me, seems clearly either blatantly greedy or just mean-spirited.

Greed and mean-spiritedness certainly accounts to the decision, but they're not the only reasons. If 85% of the worldwide market share was held by Bollywood, you'd have all these countries (minus India, obviously) who would single out Big Bad India.
Because, as NYE puts it, many countries are inundated


*Maybe my contention comes from the fact that I don't consider that people really listen to what they want when it comes to modern media. In a world where there are so many different songs, most people prefer to choose a source of music, which then selects the individual songs people actually listen to. This is why radio stations set trends.
As a result, the choice is not purely in the hands of the individual, especially when the individual becomes a "captive customer" of the radio station (he only listens to that one out of habit, out of peer pressure, because he hates other themes, whatever). In such a case, the decision of what music the individual will listen to is not only partially, but entirely in the hands of the radio station.
As such, the quotas do not harm the choice of the individual, but the restrictions the radio stations have upon themselves. Especially the "new artist" quota forces radio stations to be somehow daring.
As such, in my opinion, the individual isn't the one hurt by these quotas. It can be argued that it goes against the freedom of business, but not really against the freedom to listen what you want.

[Fake Boris]

When some people in this thread talk about the "greed" of the signatory countries, they need to get their facts and proportions straight. America is, and by far, the largest market in the world. In fact, the American market is so huge and wealthy that it can easily sustain by itself niche productions and bold innovation with little to none public funding. Hollywoodian blockbusters generate hundreds of millions worth of $, and even billions at times.

As such, the accusation of the UNESCO convention being based on greed is deeply tainted with an American, ethnocentric view of culture. In Hollywood, 40m$ is considered a small budget; in France, which is still the 4th or 5th largest market in the world, the most expensive film production in its whole history had a budget of 27m$.

So if even France and Germany are struggling, imagine the position most of the 147 signatory countries find themselves into. Just as an example, the most succesfull movie in Quebec's history generated revenues of 8m$, which does not even represent more than 3 or 4 days of shooting of your typical Hollywoodian movie - not to talk about the marketing budgets, and the massive control of the movie theaters held by the American majors.

Here, a blockbuster generates a profit of a few thousand dollars; book publishers consider selling 1000 copies of a book a success. And yet Quebec, by its GDP, is approximately the 20th largest economy in the world.

People here - and in most countries - don't see a culture as a consumer good, for an obvious reason: there is no money to be made, simply. Allowing the world to evolve even more towards an economic conception of culture would strangle what little is left of the viability of culture in most countries of the world, outside of the 5 or 6 richer nations.

If you really think it's all about money, then look for the culprits where the money is.

[DinoDoc]

Is it our fault that your culture sucks so much that even your own people won't support it unless forced to?

[Fake Boris]

You're such an idiot, why do you even try? Are you retarded enough to think that just because people don't read the Odyssey anymore, it makes it worthless? Porn generates more money than German expressionism. Does it make it better?

[Fake Boris]

To be more precise, the problem is not that my people does not support its culture. You know, in term of % of the market, our blockbusters are comparable to the American ones. Generating 8m$ in Quebec, proportionnally speaking, amounts to generating 320m$ in the American market.

Had you cared about my point, you would have realized that it was about the fundamental unfairness brought by the difference in size of the two markets.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Are you retarded enough to think that just because people don't read the Odyssey anymore, it makes it worthless?

When was this gilded age the masses read the Odyssey?

[Fake Boris]

ha ha smartass

[Colonâ„¢]

That's not an answer to my question.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by notyoueither

Are you afraid of the competition?

When that competition is protected and has a guaranteed market share? Yes. There should be equal treatment for all competitors.