UN Flunks Economics Again

[DanS]

Personally, I'm baffled by this fear that Hollywood having 90% of the movie market is going to make the French, Germans, or whoever become less French or German. The underlying fear seems to be that these folks will become Americans (oh the horror!), which is an absurd notion on its face.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Colon
That's not an answer to my question.

The Odyssey was a famous ancient legend, recited and spread in all of ancient Greece by numerous poets. It wasn't read, but it was known.

I might be wrong, but my initial thought was that you were playing on the notion that people didn't read the Odyssey, but rather heard it.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
You're such an idiot, why do you even try?

Two reasons:
1) Because it's like shooting fish in a barrel. And it's a bit fun watching Canadians defend blatant protectionism after sitting through the interminable softwood debates.
2) This one applies to the French, etc. as well as you. It's also a little bit scary that you have such little faith in your own people that you feel that they would not support quality Canadian, French, German, programing willingly and have to force them into doing so by limiting the freedom they should have to choose.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Oerdin


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

Like in the US defence industry?

[Fake Boris]

The problem is that in the case of culture, diversity is part of quality (at least, in the modern conception we have of it). The market structure is relatively competent at delivering quality, but only in a specific style; it is notoriously inept at producing diversity, though, especially when diversity is directly related to the vitality of local cultures that are strangled by a dominant one, which is intrinsically advantaged by the size of its original market.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


The Odyssey was a famous ancient legend, recited and spread in all of ancient Greece by numerous poets. It wasn't read, but it was known.

I might be wrong, but my initial thought was that you were playing on the notion that people didn't read the Odyssey, but rather heard it.

I was playing on the underlying assumption I'm spotting amongst many that there ever has been an age when the masses occupied themselves with "high" culture. There never has been one. Most people have always concerned themselves with popular culture (if at all), with tendency of such culture moving "upwards". Theatre was also initially reviled as dumb tripe, corrupting the minds of the ordinary man. The same thing is happening with grafitti and house nowadays (AKA "street art" and "electronic music", sounds more fancy and upmarket).
Money also always has played a major role. Rubens, Shakespaere and Warhol were as much businessmen as they were artists.

I find this disdain for popular culture extremely obnoxious.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Colon
I was playing on the underlying assumption I'm spotting amongst many that there ever has been an age when the masses occupied themselves with "high" culture. There never has been one. Most people have always concerned themselves with popular culture, with tendency of such culture moving "upwards". Theatre was also initially reviled as dumb tripe, corrupting the minds of the ordinary man. The same thing is happening with grafitti and house nowadays (AKA "street art" and "electronic music", sounds more fancy and upmarket).
Money also always has played a major role. Rubens, Shakespaere and Warhol were as much businessmen as they were artists.

I find this disdain for popular culture extremely obnoxious.

Well said! After all, rock and roll was derided and thought of as a fad which would soon be dead (and thank god thought the elite of high culture).

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Colon
When was this gilded age the masses read the Odyssey?

There was at least an age where the people listened to the Odyssey. It used to be popular in ancient Greece.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Like in the US defence industry?

[KrazyHorse]

I'll PhD NYE's comments for the Yanks

The reason we don't allow complete freedom of trade in certain areas is because we have a non-economic interest in seeing the home-grown industry do well.

Claiming that under the same category as other protectionist topics is idiotic.

Especially when the US defense industry is a much bigger pie than is the Canadian cultural industry.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Colon

I find this disdain for popular culture extremely obnoxious.

QFT

[Adam Smith]

I'll see KH's PhD and raise it....

Originally posted by notyoueither
Like in the US defence industry?

There are several reasons why this is an inappropriate analogy.

First, the demand for airframes is highly variable. In wartime you need a lot of them here, now. In peacetime you do not. So far as I can tell this sort of variability in demand is not characteristic of culture. People listen to folk musicians pretty much all the time.

Second, there are very large fixed costs associated with building aircraft. An aircraft plant can cost billions of dollars. Moreover, the aircraft plant can’t be used for much of anything else. The investment is sunk into that use. In contrast, most of you seem to be arguing that the cultural artists who are most at risk are the small artists who don’t have a lot of financial backing. Also note Rufus’s observation that specialization in film making may have made the small-scale French cinema better.

Third, in defense industries there is always the possibility of post-contractual opportunistic behavior. Since a contractor could give away defense secrets, production processes need to be closely held. But producers of cultural services want greater exposure, to the point that many of you argue (in other threads) that “information should be free”.

Foreign firms are able to work in the US defense industry when they are able to overcome these kinds of inherent considerations. One immediate example I know of is Toshiba, which made precision milling equipment necessary to build quiet propulsion systems for US submarines. (Toshiba later infamously sold the technology to Russia, thus illustrating the problem of post-contractual opportunistic behavior.) I am sure there are other examples.

These kinds of issues have long been known to economists, and are nicely summarized in Klein, Crawford, and Alchian, “Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process”, Journal of Law and Economics, October, 1978, pp. 297-326. I can’t find a copy of the article on line, but here is a short abstract:

Builds on Coase’s insight that transaction, coordinating, and contracting costs must be used to explain the degree of vertical integration. Thus if transaction costs are high, the firm will vertically integrate. This paper extends this by looking at "one particular [transaction] cost of using the market system--the possibility of post-contractual opportunistic behavior." Where the costs of such post-contractual opportunistic behavior are high (e.g. when dealing with specialized processes and high fixed costs), vertical integration will supercede market systems.

http://www.financeprofessor.com/summaries/KleinCrawfordAlchian1978.htm

[Sandman]

You forgot to mention national pride.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
The Odyssey was a famous ancient legend, recited and spread in all of ancient Greece by numerous poets. It wasn't read, but it was known.

Er, in ancient Greece yes. Since then no.

I'm not quite sure how it's Bush's, or even America's fault.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Colon
I find this disdain for popular culture extremely obnoxious.

QFT.