It’s time for the regular Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please. My suggested discussion starter: Back to school?
Category: Regular Features
What I’m reading
I’ve just finished Who Rules? How government retains control in a privatised economy by Michael Keating. Keating’s basic analysis, with which I agree, is that governments are facing a problem of rising demands and bounded state capacity. Hence, wherever possible, they are economising on capacity, for example by using regulation rather than direct public provision of goods and services. Thus, the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s are seen, not as cutting back government but as making it more effective. An obvious inference is that, if the size of the public sector, relative to the economy as a whole, has remained roughly constant for the past 25 years, and the effectiveness of the state has been enhanced, then government is playing a larger role than before, contrary to the hopes of neoliberals and the fears of social democrats. I think this is broadly correct.
Not surprisingly, Keating has a more favourable view of the reforms, many of which he helped to implement, than I do. On almost every point, I felt he was a little too supportive of the reform agenda and a little too dismissive of the critics[1]. Still, it’s an important contribution to the debate, and well worth reading.
fn1. Interestingly, I get quoted a few times, but mainly for criticisms of the pre-reform status quo, such as the observation that industry policy in the era of tariff protection was ad hoc and incoherent.
Let’s hear it for holidays
Ross Gittins says
Those who whinge about lost production on public holidays are misguided
, and readers won’t be surprised to learn that I agree. Here’s a piece I wrote before Christmas. It was planned as a leisurely holiday piece for the Fin, but the tsunami disaster gave us something more urgent to think about.
In many ways, the Christmas holidays represents the Australian economic problem in microcosm. On the one hand, we expect and look forward to a break from work. Even if we don’t take a holiday, Australians have traditionally taken it for granted that not too much will get done in December and January.
On the other hand, we spend a lot on Christmas presents and they seem to get more lavish every year. If we want to spend more, we need to work more to pay for it.
In the short run, we can bridge the gap with the trusty credit card, but that just means a lot more work to pay it off, some time in the future. It seems as if the only solution is to stop taking those long Christmas breaks and go back to work straight after New Year.
Read More »
Lessig on the limits of copyright (Crossposted at CT)
This is my second report on last week’s Creative Commons conference. Lessig’s closing lecture was given in the Banco court of the Queensland Supreme Court (very plush – those lawyers don’t stint themselves) and was focused on traditional copyright issues . For Brisbane readers, an interesting tidbit titbit was that we haven’t seen OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism because neither the Courier-Mail nor the Australian (both Murdoch-owned) would carry more than minimal ads for it. One of the costs of being in a one-newspaper town.
The main point of the lecture was a historical survey of the relentless extension of copyright, along with some discussions of a failed attempt to stop this in the case of Eldred vs Ashcroft. This case is notable for the fact that, as has happened before, the economics profession almost unanimously supported the losing side. As Lessig argued copyright has been extended in length, scope and force to the extent that nowadays virtually everything is copyright, virtually forever.
Given that the defenders of unlimited copyright are interested mainly in protecting the merchandise markets for Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh, it’s often struck me that the sensible political resolution would be to concede defeat on this point, and seek to liberalise copyright for the 99 per cent of literary and artistic output that doesn’t have such huge monopoly value. One step in this direction, which Lessig discussed in his talk, is the case of Kahle v. Ashcroft which challenges changes to U.S. copyright law that have created a large class of “orphan works.” Orphan works are books, films, music, and other creative works which are out of print and no longer commercially available, but which are still regulated by copyright.
As I’ve said previously, in the end, I don’t think either law or technology will be decisive here. Rather it’s that the value of being freely connected to a huge network will exceed any benefits that can be obtained by gating off a particular part of the network and demanding payment for access. After all, the reason we have an open Internet is that it drove proprietary networks out of business or else absorbed them. Attempts to create “walled gardens” within the Internet haven’t been abandoned entirely, but they haven’t prospered either.
In this context, the most exciting feature of the conference was the launch of the Australian version of the Creative Commons licence. Widespread voluntary adoption of this kind of license will render measures like the extension of copyright irrelevant. In this context, the version of the license I particularly like the “Share Alike” version, which resembles the GNU public licence in requiring derivative users to adopt a similarly open licence. The greater the volume of material with this kind of licence that is out there, the greater the incentive to make use of it, even at the cost of forgoing commercial copyrights. Since most commercial culture depends ultimately on unpaid appropriation of older material, the effects will be cumulative (or, in today’s popular jargon, ‘viral’)[1].
As I mentioned, I was struck by the quality of Lessig’s presentation. He’s a great speaker and I was so struck by the elegance of his minimalist Powerpoint presentations that I got him to send them to me . He mostly uses a white typewriter font on black background with just one or a few words per slide. In the spirit of remix, I plan to see how much of this look and feel I can appropriate for my own work[2].
update By coincidence, just after I finished this the latest London Review of Books arrived, complete with a lengthy article on the monopolistic practices of the London booksellers in the 18th century, a point also addressed by Lessig. Unfortunately, the article itself is subscriber-only
fn1. This reminds me that my CC licence got lost in the shift from Movable Type. Another job to be done.
fn2. I’ve just decided to make the shift from Powerpoint to Keynote and Lessig mentioned he was doing the same. I’ll be trawling the web for examples.
Sponsored link
I’m posting this link supporting Nicholas Gruen of Peach who cosponsored the tsunami appeal.
Monday Message Board
It’s time for the regular Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please. I probably won’t have anything more to say about the Labor leadership, but I’d be interested in the thoughts of others.
The centrality of coffee
Tony Judt illustrating the centrality of coffee as a metaphor (or maybe synecdoche) for civilisation. (thanks to Glenn Condell for the link)
Weekend reflections
This regular feature is back. The idea is that, over the weekend, you should post your thoughts in a more leisurely fashion than in ordinary comments or the Monday Message Board.
Please post your thoughts on any topic, at whatever length seems appropriate to you. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
Weekend reflections
This regular feature is back. The idea is that, over the weekend, you should post your thoughts in a more leisurely fashion than in ordinary comments or the Monday Message Board.
Please post your thoughts on any topic, at whatever length seems appropriate to you. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
A quick report on the tsunami appeal
Thanks to everyone who helped the tsunami appeal by commenting, linking and especially by cosponsoring. I’ve sent my money off, and emailed all the donors to advise them how much they’ve promised. I’m really impressed at the way many of the regular commenters here, including some who are regular sparring partners, dug deep to help this appeal. Quite a few have given more than their already generous commitment Here’s my preliminary list[1] of donations.
Andrew Norton 47
anon 235
anon 70.5
Harry Clarke 94
Jack Strocchi and Claire Rodda 47
Mark Bahnisch 47
Nicholas Gruen 470
paul2 47
Peter Fuller 94
quiggin 500
rdb 500
saint 100
wbb 60
wmmbb 94
The total is over $2400, or more than twice what I originally anticipated giving. I plan to give my leftover $500 to another good cause, and I hope to run another appeal like this before too long. I’ll make a longer post about the whole event, and some of the issues raised, soon.
fn1. My administrative skills are not what they might be, so if I’ve omitted anyone, or made any other errors, please advise me.
fn2. In return for 100 words of praise for John Howard, which will be coming soon.
John Quiggin 