My Quest for Truth and Liberty
Posts tagged Liberty
To Try…Essayer
Dec 14th
The word “essay” comes from the French, “essayer” which means “to try” or “to attempt.”
I haven’t written many essays in my lifetime. Maybe 10 at the most. And a few of those would probably be more correctly called reports. Today I enrolled in the “Introduction to Logic” course that the Mises Academy is offering for January. When I was looking at the course details of it a couple weeks ago, I got worried when it mentioned something around writing essays. I love writing, but as I’m sure you understand, writing fiction is so much different than essay writing. No one can tell you that you wrote the story wrong. They can say they don’t like it, and you can say, “oh well,” and just shrug it off. That doesn’t happen when you get a bad grade on your paper because your professor doesn’t like it. I have never felt very confident with my essay writing skills, so I thought that this month I’d work on getting a little better at it. I picked a topic I’m very interested in and am somewhat knowledgeable
about, and started working. The essay began as an argument against cruelty of our “justice” system, the injustice of military tribunals, and the assault against human rights in a place called Gitmo. But there’s so much background to that; it is hard to know and feel how wrong something is if you don’t know what is right. So I spent part of the essay talking about Common Law and the justice system in medieval England. Then I gave the example of the Boston Massacre to illustrate how passionate the Founding Fathers were about justice (John Adams volunteered to defend in court a group of British soldiers who were responsible for the Boston Massacre, just to ensure they would receive a fair trial). Then I traced the decline of justice in America, starting with the infamous Lincoln and then FDR. I’ll finish with an explanation of military tribunals, the erosion of justice as began by President Bush after 9-11 and how President Obama hasn’t done anything to improve it. I’ll probably conclude with some arguments about how this concern about suspected terrorists is deeply relevant to our own lives. It is actually really fun, I’m enjoying it a lot. 
So the word “essayer” has a double meaning for my essay, I’m not only trying to persuade my readers of a certain viewpoint, I’m also simply trying to write an essay!
If anyone is interested in looking at the draft, maybe offering some comments or suggestions, just leave a comment. Thanks!
Hello, Thursday!
Dec 9th
You probably didn’t read “Bleak House” by Dickens anytime recently (if you did, and you actually read the whole thing, congratulations!) but if you recall, there’s a rather funny line in it that I thought of this morning. Well, it isn’t an extremely funny line. Dickens was good at introducing comic relief characters who were, really, very funny. No one but a Scrooge could help laughing at Mrs. Jiggleby and her children tumbling up and down the stairs while she devotes all her attentions to helping these poor orphaned children on the bank of some obscure river in Africa. But this line I’m referring to is a little more difficult to appreciate. You’ll have to read the whole book to get the full flavor of it. But here goes, “the wind is in the east.” Funny, right? Well, you see, this line was often repeated in the book by a certain character. I can’t quite remember this character’s name, but they were one of the main players (there were only like 25 main players in Bleak House), I have a vague feeling it was some elderly and eccentric man. And whenever anything wasn’t right, a disaster was looming, bad news was announced, anything of that sort, he’d murmur, “oh, the wind is in the east.” After a while it got to be rather amusing. But I thought of it today because the wind is in the south and that means it is extremely cold in my room. I know that when the wind is in the south, I will have to wear several layers.
On another subject, December is such a frustrating month. I have all these things I need to do before Christmas so I can have a nice relaxing break, but the days just slip away and I don’t seem to be any closer to my goal. The last thing I knew it was December 1st, and now suddenly it is the 9th. What happened? I don’t know.
And related to December, I’m a Facebook fan of the page “Save Bradley Manning.” Bradley Manning was the young soldier who leaked the very revealing video of cold-blooded murder in Afghanistan…done by “our side.” This soldier has been in prison for 197 days. He will be turning 23 around Christmas. In prison. So on this Facebook page someone said something about sending holiday cards to him. And then I realized this would be a great project for my sisters and I to do together. They also encourage you to send a card to your U.S. Representative, urging them to support the release of Bradley Manning, not that they actually would, but hey, it deserves a try. It is hard sometimes for me to really lecture the girls as they aren’t interested in all this theory and abstract ideas. But to actually be doing something hands-on, I think that’d help them realize the significance of it. We’d have an opportunity to discuss whistleblowers in other eras. What happened to people who didn’t like what Hitler was doing? What happened to “traitors” under Stalin? And then we could explore the argument that says, “the soldier agreed to support the government, he was breaking his contract by releasing this information” and hopefully the girls would see that human life trumps contracts. It is more important to save human life than to keep an agreement. But I want the girls to think this out on their own and come up with their own examples. We could also talk about indefinite detention, and what it is like to be in prison, without knowing when you might be released. Without having a chance to prove yourself innocent in a fair court. As the girls and I just studied the French Revolution, we could compare this situation (in a very broad sense) to the Reign of Terror, how people were sent to prison without any sort of trial. They were just “counter-revolutionaries” and their basic human rights were not respected.
So we could talk about all of that…while making Christmas cards. It would be better than the girls just sitting still and staring at me. Sounds like a plan, eh? If you want to do it, here’s the info. I’ll let you know how it goes.
An Ordinary Tuesday Morning
Dec 7th
After contemplating the title of this post, I realized that it isn’t really true. Every Tuesday is different, in some sense, from the last Tuesday, so how can I say it is “ordinary”? But at least it means that nothing extraordinary has happened today.
My mother is waiting for me to clean up my room. You see, my room is where people iron their clothes, so the ironing board is always set up. It is right next to my closet (if you can call it that…more like a cubby hole) so the ironing board becomes very handy for throwing my clothes on and using as a makeshift table. I said that I’d clean it up yesterday, but it is still a bit of mess. To be honest, it is the exact same mess she saw Monday morning. But don’t blame me, blame BBC. That’s right, blame the British Broadcasting Corporation. For you see, cleaning my room is such a chore, I like to listen to things while working. An Agatha Christie mystery or Jeeves and Wooster are preferable. And BBC doesn’t have anything good available for listening right now. So the mess will just have to wait. And if my mother wants it cleaned up sooner, she’ll have to talk to BBC. Unless she tells me to pick up the mess regardless of if I have a nice story to enjoy.
Yesterday I started reading Guido Hulsmann’s “The Ethics of Money Production.” It is a really interesting book, especially as it deals with the morals of money. Is it “bad” (in a moral or ethical sense) to inflate the money supply? Is fractional reserve banking wrong? He will be addressing those sorts of questions. Right now he’s laying the groundwork, talking about the different kinds of money (real money, certificates, credit, etc…) and how they developed. As others have said, it is exciting to watch Guido Hulsmann, he’s really one of the leading Austrians of our day. A very brilliant man with many good books and contributions, and I’m eagerly waiting to see what he comes out with next. Not only is he teaching Austrian economics, but he’s also refining and improving the Austrian theories. He spent around 10 years researching his book on the life of Mises, “The Last Knight of Liberalism.” By the way, if you want to read that book, but don’t really want to read, I happen to have inside information that an audio reading of the book will be available online at Mises.org at some point. But it was fun to hear his stories of running around the world trying to get original documents and information about Mises to put in his book. I’m slightly biased, I suppose, because I have met him, and so if I make you think he’s a really amazing economist, then you’ll be impressed that I actually talked to him. But it is true, and I wasn’t the first one to say it either.
I’m also trying to read part of “Man, Economy, and State” and part of “Conceived in Liberty” before Christmas, along with “Democracy: The God That Failed” and “The Ethics of Money Production.” Oh, and a book about life in the 1920′s and 30′s, I think I’ve mentioned before. And a book by Thomas Watson called “The Great Gain of Godliness.” This really is keeping me quite busy. And that reminds me, I’ve run out of time to ramble on and on here, and must get going.
Holiday Special on Economics Tutoring!
Dec 6th
I’m feeling pretty generous right now, so I decided to offer a special deal on the tutoring rates. If you aren’t really sure how it would go and don’t want to commit to anything, I will give you two weeks of tutoring absolutely free. You email me at econtutor(at)savannahliston(dot)com and tell me what you’re interested in. Maybe something like, “you know, I don’t really understand all of this about QE2 and the Fed…what is it all about?” Or “I had to read part of The Wealth of Nations for school and I don’t know what to think of Adam Smith and his economic ideas.” Or “I didn’t really like economics in school, and I know that what the government tells us is all wrong. Can you give me a quick overview of Austrian economics, the foundation of it, and what makes it different from other schools of thought?” The possibilities are endless. Really. And you will get 4 hours of one-on-one teaching and discussion about these topics. I will give you some recommended reading, maybe even draw up a course plan so you can keep pursuing your topic of interest. As we progress and encounter new questions or confusion, I will do the research to figure it out and present the material to you in a way that makes sense to you and is, to use my favorite word, “intuitive.”
Warning: I probably won’t feel this generous after Christmas, so I recommend that you take me up on the offer soon. We don’t have to start until after Christmas if you’re busy over the holidays, but to make it count, you have to email me before Christmas and say you are interested and want to take me up on the offer. What is there to lose?
The Price of the Housing Boom
Dec 6th
Yesterday we were driving through what we call the “West Side” of Rockford. This is the place you really wouldn’t like to drive through late at night. This the place where you wouldn’t want to stray from the main road but just get through as fast as possible. We’ll be driving through there quite often now (it is our new route to church) and so I wanted to make some sort of lesson out of it for the girls. I pointed to the crummy run-down apartments and said that was probably a result of rent control. I explained how making drugs illegal just creates more violence and ruins more lives. Then we talked about welfare and how that has affected these places. But then my mom pointed out how it used to be that these sorts of people lived only on the “West Side.” If you were well-off and had saved enough money, you could buy a nice house in a good part of town. Now I’m always hearing stories about thefts, shout-outs, drug dealing, and the rest in the really nice neighborhoods. Why? Perhaps because the housing boom has made it so easy for people to get luxurious homes, when they haven’t really earned it. It used to be that someone growing up on the West Side had the opportunity to get a good job, keep out of gangs, and become a better and more responsible person. Banks would see that this person was responsible, had a good chunk of savings, and they would loan money to this person to buy a nice house in a nice part of town. They could leave behind the crime of their childhood and start a new life. If they really were nice people, the neighbors in this new neighborhood would be happy to see them there. They would be a benefit to the community, maybe shovel the driveway of some little old lady in the winter and mow her lawn in the summer. But what has happened during the boom? Someone could show up at the bank and ask for a loan for a huge and fancy house on the “East Side” and they’d get it. Especially if they were a minority, since the liberals had forced banks to loan out more to low-income people and minorities. So you’re living on the East Side, you’ve worked hard to get to where you are. The place where you live is a sign of who you are, that you’ve done well in the life, are responsible, etc…and someone shows up and buys the house next to you. Instead of offering to shovel your driveway they start dealing drugs. They haven’t left that behind them, they’ve brought it with them. They have loud annoying parties all night. Sometimes there might be drive-by shootings. And you spent a fortune (your own fortune too, not someone else’s) to reach this position, only to have neighbors who deal drugs.
Note: I don’t have a problem, morally, with people who deal drugs. I mean, it is just a voluntary exchange in the “free” market. I wouldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t encourage anyone to do it, but I really can’t stop legitimately stop someone from doing it. The problem is that since drugs are illegal, dealing drugs comes with a very high price to those around you. Let’s say you’re dealing drugs from the house next to mine on the “East Side” and you don’t keep your agreement to some customer. They can’t take you to court. So they come shoot at your house and maybe raid it. And I’m your neighbor, I’m going to have to deal with the consequences of that as well. I didn’t choose to live next to drug-dealers, I wanted to get away from all that, and then (thanks to the government and the Fed) you can buy a house right next to me.
Thanks to the housing boom, there is no longer any distinction between those who have earned a nice house and those who have one handed to them. And this is having terrible consequences for everyone who lives in such places.
Me? Oh, I get 160 acres all to myself (and my family) and don’t have to worry much about neighbors dealing drugs. Oh, the joys of country life!
Man, Economy, and State…and Other Ramblings
Dec 3rd
So yesterday I actually got around to starting “Man, Economy, and State” by Murray Rothbard. I’ve meant to start it for a couple weeks. I wasn’t exactly procrastinating, but just…well, um, I didn’t get to it. It is one of those books you can’t exactly take with you in the car, or read while eating lunch, or read in bed as you drift off to sleep. It is a bit too big for that, at 2 and 1/2 inches thick and 1,438 pages. But I opened it up yesterday, slowly and gently. You know how some movies and songs are so good they make your spine tingle and you go cold all over? Well, it was a little funny, but that’s how I felt when I opened up “Man, Economy, and State.” Who would have guessed that a massive treatise on economics would be so exciting? I must admit, it was a little confusing on a couple pages talking about marginal utility. It was all information I knew already, and the whole thing about the farmer and his cows and horses and X-1, Y-1, X-2, Y-2, etc…(X and Y are two types of goods being considered on the value scale of someone. They might value X-1 and X-2 [the first 2 horses] over Y-1 and Y-2, and so forth) so I really didn’t bother to read that super-closely. I did like the part about a ham sandwich (which demonstrates capital and consumer goods, and the means that must be used to reach an end) because, well, I love ham sandwiches. More than Peter Klein’s croutons. That’s a sorta inside joke, but I’m feeling generous, so I’ll explain. When taking some online classes from Prof. Klein, I noticed that in nearly every lecture he would bring up croutons. He’d use them to demonstrate all sorts of economic principles, and he’d always note how much he likes to make croutons. So my sisters and I joke about it, how when I go to Mises U I should bring some really nice stale bread and present it as a gift for him so that he can make croutons. So Prof. Klein uses croutons to demonstrate capital vs. consumer goods. Rothbard uses a ham sandwich, and that’s much better (in my opinion) because I like ham sandwiches 5 times better than croutons. And this last sentence about ham sandwiches being 5 times better…well, that’s a little inside joke too. We were talking about it on Facebook yesterday, because I posted a quote from Man, Economy, and State. Rothbard was maintaining that it is impossible to use cardinal numbers (like 2 or 5 or 10) when talking about preferences. He said that we can’t say, “I like playing piano 3 time as much as washing dishes,” but that we can only use ordinal numbers, “I like playing piano firstly, then secondly I like reading a book, and then washing dishes.” So I didn’t really mean what I said about like ham sandwiches 5 times as much as croutons, I was just being facetious.
And while we’re on this wonderful topic of economics, let me share with you a quote which was sent to me this week by a good friend. It is from “Theory of Money and Credit” by Mises and goes like this, “Acts of valuation are not susceptible to any kind of measurement.” Isn’t that great? I love it! Okay, I’ll let you in on the secret now. Notice how it starts, “Acts of valuation.” Up to this point in economics (1924) valuing had been considered a feeling. Instead of saying “value can’t be measured because it is a feeling, it can only be compared to other similar feelings,” Mises clears up all the confusion by showing that valuation is an act, not just some weird emotion. I’ll quote my dear friend who sent the quote, Floy Lilley from the Mises Institute, “Although this change did not affect his actual analysis of the problems of conceiving of value as a quantifiable entity, it marked a conscious transition from a psychological conception of value to one in which value was an act rather than a feeling.” Isn’t that great? It just gives me such relief and happiness to think of valuing as an act rather than a feeling. Not sure why. But this quote really made my week, I made the “quote of the week” on my whiteboard next to my desk.
And you don’t have to be quite so thrilled about it as I am, I’ll still think of you as a good person and perhaps a good Austrian. I tend to be a little extreme about things right now. Hey, I’m a teenager, don’t blame me too much. At least I’m not into hard rock music (just Josh Groban. How does that old book go? Dante’s Inferno? The deepest circle in hell is reserved for those who listen to hard rock music, and the next one is for those who listen to Josh Groban. No, I’m really joking now, so don’t worry, if you listen to Josh Groban, I think we have far more serious sins to consider, although listening to Josh Groban isn’t really a sin.) and funky hairstyles and all that. You see, I’m not the typical teen, for I don’t get excited about Lady Gaga, I get excited about Man, Economy, and State!!!!
To Gouge or Not to Gouge?
Dec 1st
You are probably familiar with the term “price gouging.” I’m talking today about price gouging in a specific market where demand for a good has suddenly skyrocketed. For instance, after a natural distaster demand for water, food, flashlights, etc…becomes very high. Wikipedia says, “Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to a situation in which a seller prices goods or commodities much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.” Now the obvious problem is, who decides what price is reasonable and fair? But there’s a more fundamental problem than that even.
Let’s take an example like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Because water, food, and flashlights help people reach an end they desire, those products are in high demand. The desire to stay alive (the end would be to maintain life) is almost universal, so there is a universal demand for the products. Since the supply simply can’t provide for the demand. Prices go up. Often they go up astronomically, from $1 for a bottle of water to $10 or $20.
Some say that isn’t fair for a water distributor to sell water at $20 in New Orleans when you can drive perhaps an hour away and get it for $1. But think about the profit. It might cost $5 to sell water in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina went through there. But you can sell it for $10 or $20. That’s a huge profit, unlike the usual maybe .75 cent profit in normal circumstances. If you are Water Distributor A (WD. A) and you see Water Distributor B in New Orleans making these outrageous profits, you will probably want to get in on it. So the supply of water in New Orleans has just doubled since you joined the market. Then there’s WD. C and WD. D, and well, you see where this is going. Because the profits are so high, there’s a huge incentive for others companies to also sell water in New Orleans. Eventually this increased supply will reach the demand and prices will be driven back to maybe $2 or $3. So who benefits from this price gouging? The consumers. If water could only be sold at $1 a bottle, there’d be much less incentive for other companies to come in and sell water. It would take longer for the supply to reach demand. The people of New Orleans would suffer.
So there’s the response to price gouging for those liberals who want to feel bad for the victims of disasters. Price gouging helps victims.
And here’s the libertarian argument. I’m going to create a little different scenario here. Let’s say that you are X and you are very forward-thinking. You realize that it is likely there will be some sort of disaster, social collapse, hyperinflation, whatever, and you want to prepare. You sacrifice present spending so you can stock up on water, canned food, all that sort of stuff. You also give up a really nice room in your basement to store all this stuff. And you wait. And you keep buying. And you wait. And you make your room bigger to hold it all. And you wait for disaster to strike. And eventually, it does. You’re one of 5 people in your whole town who has a storage room full of canned food. It doesn’t get bad until everyone else runs out of food in their fridges and pantries. That takes about 2 days. And then they come to you. And you say, “okay, I’ll sell you this can of carrots for $8.” And they say, “Isn’t that a little expensive?” And you point to the long line of people standing behind this person, “no, it isn’t too expensive. Look, I’ve got 500 cans of food and 5,000 people are waiting for it.” So they give over the $8 for the can of food, and so it goes. Look at it this way, there are only 3 possibilities if you are asking $8 for a tiny can of carrots.
1) No one will buy it. So then how will you profit?
2) You are forced to lower your price.
3) They buy it at $8.
The consumers are still in charge. Your price gouging is just the natural entrepreneurial response to this increased demand for canned food by consumers.
And then there’s the property rights issue. You sacrificed 5 years ago to have canned food today. You gave up valuable space in your basement. You dedicated time and work to preparing for a possible disaster. And the people around you bought big-screen TVs and Cheetos. It is your cans of food, don’t you have the right to try to sell it at whatever price you want? If consumers will buy it at your higher price, you can’t be “blamed” for that. I could try to sell a bottle of water today for $10, but no one will buy it. If I sold a bottle of water in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina for $10, someone would buy it. Why would we think that the seller is somehow “evil” or “selfish” because the consumer wanted to buy it?
Just some thoughts on price gouging.
What’s New?
Nov 30th
So you’ve probably noticed some slight changes on the site.
I’ve decided to switch my focus from teaching an online class to online tutoring. Why? This is the way of the free market. I’ve concluded that perhaps teaching a full semester of economics may be too daunting for some and the time commitment too great. If you sign up for it before December 13th, I may still teach it, but with such a small group as I have right now, it really isn’t worth the work I’ll have to put into it. So what’s this online tutoring all about?
Instead of expecting students to conform to the same curriculum, time-length, difficulty of study, etc…I will be teaching students individually and developing a course plan unique to them. It might just be a month of study on the Federal Reserve. Then in a few months you might want to learn more about Keynesian economics and why it is so bad. We might study that for a month or two, depending on your time and interest. It might be just a summer project when school is out, maybe studying the business cycle.
Why might this interest you?
- With the amount of information provided online by the Mises Institute, it is sometimes hard to determine exactly what will be useful to your particular needs, and it is difficult to stay focused on one topic. “Hey, I was going to study the history of economic thought but here’s a lecture on environmental economics that looks really neat.” Having someone help you do the research and decide what materials to cover will help cut down on wasted time and allow you to focus on whatever area interests you most.
- If there’s no accountability it is easy to fall behind and not accomplish things. “I’ve been meaning to read Human Action for the last 6 months, but I just keep reading the first chapter over and over.” With someone there to help you reach goals and provide accountability you’ll be able to learn far more.
- Instead of taking a course that doesn’t fit your needs or interests exactly, you can have a course of study that is at your level of learning, in a time-frame that works for you, and only covers the areas that you are specifically interested in. Of course, depending on what areas you want to study we may have to research other things as well, but the depth of study is all up to you. For instance, if we were going to study the business cycle that would require a solid understanding of the capital structure to see where exactly the market goes wrong during the business cycle and the real cause of it.
So that is what’s new around here. There is no “deadline” for signing up, but there are specials right now, check out this page for more details, or email econtutor(at)savannahliston(dot)com, or just comment on this post if you have any questions.
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Nov 30th
On why we shouldn’t wish for the good old days of President Bush’s administration.
~ 14 minutes
Our Nice Local Library
Nov 27th
I use this title in two senses. Firstly, I used to really like our local library. It was close. The people were friendly. There were good books. The second sense is a sarcastic sense because you are about to find out it isn’t so nice anymore.
What isn’t nice about it?
1) They have so many people working there that it isn’t like coming in to a friendly and familiar face. Often it is someone I don’t know at all. Sometimes they are friendly, and other times they aren’t. Maybe it is just because they are busy. Or the guilt of knowing they are working for “The State.”
2) I have read all their decent books now. Their half-way decent and maybe wholesome books have been replaced by Harry Potter and all of that junk. And if there’s a book I particularly want, they are bound not to have it. It is like a law of the universe. I want a book, therefore they will not have that book. I’ll have to write up an inter-library loan request slip for the book. Sometimes it will go through. Sometimes I’ll get the book. Sometimes I’ll get it the next week. Or sometimes it will take a month, or two. One time I was doing some studying on WWII and requested a book. It didn’t come, and I eventually forgot about. Months and months later I was studying ancient Rome and the library called. “Do you still want this book on the battles of WWII?” “Uh, no thanks. Too late now.” So that’s frustrating. Very frustrating. And on a related note, they have very few good movies, and that’s pretty much all we use the library for now. We’ve nearly exhausted their supply of good movies. Their DVD collection keeps growing, but the good movie collection keeps shrinking. Doesn’t anyone at this library have any taste?
3) The library is slowly becoming less efficient. It used to be that I could go there and get color copies. As we’re pretty much out in the middle of nowhere (at least when it comes to office stores and color printers) I liked that. Sure, I had to pay for it, but when I needed a last-minute poster for an event or something, I knew I could go there. Now all they have is black and white. Several people (including me) have had a difficult experience with the library. I returned a book (very thick bright colored book, couldn’t miss it) and then got a letter saying that I needed to return the book. I explained that I knew I had returned it, but I got another letter. We went to the library and searched the shelves in case it was misplaced. No avail. We (my mom and I) go to the library office to tell them that no, we aren’t going to pay for this book because we did return it. Btw, isn’t it their job to prove that we’re guilty of not returning it? Anyways, so the person in charge (who signed the letters to me) was there and I spoke to them. They turned around, looked up on a shelf (this is in their back office) and says, “is that the book?” pointing to a large bright colored volume which did turn out to be the book. Now, why didn’t they know it was there? Or think to look for it there? I know, I know, people make mistakes. That’s okay. I’m allowing for that. But I’ve heard from several people in our district who have had the same problem.
Also, they’ve apparently had trouble with young people there because they had to post the rules of behavior for while in the library. They don’t allow anyone under 18 to check out any movies without their parent being present and giving permission. They make you show your library card (no memorizing the number anymore), I’m assuming so they make sure you’re really who you say you are. Come on, this is a little-bitty town that has one block for a downtown, two gas stations, a couple fastfood restaurants and some odds ‘n’ ends places. Since when did they need to do all this? Is it just another signal that society is digressing?
So, now what? What are we to do?
Well, as I lectured my sisters this morning, we should not be surprised at the condition of the library. It is, after all, part of the government. The government can’t be efficient. Even if the government were full of saints (rather an oxymoron, since when were saints thieves?) it would still be inefficient. It is government. So I’m not getting after this one library or blaming it on the people in charge of the library. It is just what we should expect from this institution which has such a monopoly. And that’s what it comes down to. A monopoly. No private company would dare act like this library for fear another company would “steal” all their customers. A private company would try to cater to a large customer base. “You like Harry Potter? This is the place for you. Jane Austen fans? We’ve got every book and movie related to Jane Austen here. Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie people? You’ll love our library.” Take away the state-sponsored monopoly and our little library would soon be gone. It would be swallowed up by more efficient companies that cater to the people instead of running over them.
Libraries and books are very dear to my heart, so I like thinking about what a private library would be like. Imagine the cozy aura of Barnes and Nobles, minus the overpriced and leftist books. Coffee. Snacks. My favorite books. Good rates. Yum.
