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> dissuading authors from writing by suppressing their earnings. I take it you do not know what the median author makes from writing a book. Lets just say if a
by fleitz 12y ago
> dissuading authors from writing by suppressing their earnings.
I take it you do not know what the median author makes from writing a book. Lets just say if an author was also a rational economic agent they would flip burgers rather than write books.
- drivingmenuts 12y agoTo paraphrase one of my favorite fictional characters: "It's not enough to just live. You have to have something to live for." And flipping burgers ain't it. The same people who come up with ideas like "rational economic agent" either have their bills taken care of or are surrounded by other people who think that stuff up, too. Individuals are sometimes rational, but a lot of people have to consider quality of life, life having other plans, etc., which doesn't seem to have been included in the ideas behind "rational economic agent." "Rational economic agent" boils all the "life" out of life. There's what we should be doing; there's what we want to be doing; sometimes there's what we need to be doing; and then there's the idea of what we need to be doing. Some of it earns us money, but all of it has value, which "rational economic agent" completely misses. We're human beings, not some godsdamned little spreadsheet automatons.
- fleitz 12y agoI think you're missing the point, I wasn't talking about whether one should or shouldn't be a rational economic agent. Rather that an argument advanced based on rational economic thinking is invalid when talking about writers in the general sense as they do not produce their work based on the expectation of a reasonable profit. If Amazon keeps playing hardball with Hachette, they will drive down writers profits, but writers will keep writing books because they don't care about profit. eg. There will be no reduction in the supply of books.