Now, lets see.
I’m trying to write a series of novels to address some concerns I have, and do so in an entertaining fashion while sharing some intimate awareness of why I think the concerns are very real. Now you’d like me to address some of those key issues outside of those novels.
Hemm.
The quick answer is no.
The almost as quick answer is to tell you to read the Crepuscule, posted elsewhere on this site, and ask you to apply some of your own brain sweat to the issues.
But for the sake of a more catholic awareness, let me draw your attention to a few overarching aspects of these issues that I will probably never get around to specifically writing a book about.
The spirit of a free market in an open society is that capital can be gathered and brought to bear for a purpose determined by a citizen with equal rights under the law to those of every other citizen. There is no guarantee of outcome, only of opportunity.
When taxes are levied unequally, or rights of action are apportioned unequally, or values are determined politically to favor some citizens over others, the free market no longer exists–or exists to a lesser degree on balance. This is as it has been for most of history. The freest markets in many areas are black markets because they exist wholly apart from government.
The publishing industry, and all its associated trades from writing to paper making, broke free, for the most part, from government sanction and restriction in this country with our Revolution. The freedoms of this country subsequently influenced liberty in Europe–primarily England. Competition between America and Europe created a dynamic economy for all. The wealth of nations has increased exponentially as a result. There have been many attempts to restrict that market over the last two hundred years. Most failed along with the totalitarian regimes which promulgated the restrictions. But not until recently, has this resulted in a reduction in the overall freedoms of writers and publishers.
A perfect microcosm of this, yet on a far greater scale than the book business, is the auto industry. The Ford Motor Company, making all the mistakes every over-large corporation makes due to wastefulness, inertia and bureaucracy, but blessed with relatively rational management, attempted to correct some of its more glaring faults by mortgaging a great part of its property to gather the funds to retool and reform its product line to met the competition as well as the demands of the foreseeable future. As a result, when the financial markets collapsed due to the sulfuric admixture of government meddling and private speculation, Ford was in a stronger position than most other auto companies and did not have to beg the government for special dispensations…
In an increasingly unfree economy, this was a huge mistake. Ford is now saddled with an enormous debt and must compete in a market which is being guided by politicians to enhance their own power, and against companies who are funded by the very government which is dictating the terms.
Even so, I would bet on Ford. The auto manufacturer who tries to survive by pleasing bureaucrats will only fail again and again because their priorities are artificial.
By any comparison the book industry is very small–5% or less of the gross value of telephones, or farming, or auto manufacturing alone. Yet it is being influenced by the same tax laws which were designed for the benefit of those larger industries. The modern corporation was designed by government to take advantage of international capital markets and the liability laws of key nations–not to give advantage to a little business like Barnes and Nobel. So I do not blame Barnes and Noble for taking advantage of those same laws and regulations to survive in a regulated market. When edicts on text books are issued from Washington, there is no reason why a larger company should not take advantage of its capital position to lobby for its texts over those of another. And so it goes.
The argument I make–that I am taking pains to make in the Hound–is that it’s up to the individual to alter the equation. I am not writing a polemic, but a vessel of entertainment set on a sea of facts that I believe have a much larger influence on our lives and future than is readily seen.
I am not attacking large publishers for using the advantages that government edicts and permissions have given them. That involves their responsibility to shareholders who don’t care how the money is made so long as the dividend is in the mail. That is the most essential flaw of modern corporate law. Lack of responsibility. And that derives from giving the corporation greater rights under the law than the individual.
It’s up to individuals to drive the extra mile to find a local restaurant instead of the chain eatery. It’s up to each reader to chose how they will spend their money and time. And in the mean time, if they vote to give the government more power over what they read, then that’s exactly what they will get.
Lastly, the internet is not a completely free market, but it is probably as free now as it will ever be, especially given current trends. As the government regulates and taxes the internet into submission for the ‘public good,’ the content of the internet will change. It will happen in your lifetime, and dramatically so.
And there is all of that to consider even before one addresses the unintended consequences of making information, and thus knowledge, dependent on electronic sources.
Perhaps as the political powers gain more editorial control over the information you can and cannot receive, the old dusty book will find a new market value. Unfortunately, I suspect that by then the citizenry will have long since sacrificed the First Amendment on the alter of political correctness and books will be used as poor fuel in a cold world.
