This is a question that people should be asking, as there is a considerable effort to include digital commerce in a revised NAFTA argument, as argued in a NYT column by former Secretary of State George Schultz and Pedro Aspe a former secretary of finance in Mexico. For example, the rules on digital commerce may prevent countries from imposing punitive damages, similar to what exist for copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for spreading fake ads. This is a realistic fear since Facebook and other major social media companies are likely to have substantial input into writing digital commerce provisions, whereas groups concerned about fair elections and the rights of users are not.
This piece also contains a striking error in economic reasoning. It dismisses concerns about trade deficits, telling readers:
“We hear a lot about trade deficits, but repealing trade agreements will not fix the arithmetic. If a country consumes more than it produces, it will import more than it exports. Federal deficit spending, a huge and continuing act of dissaving, is the big culprit. Control that, and you will control trade deficits.”
It is definitional that a country with a trade deficit consumes more than it produces, sort of like it is definitional that a dead person doesn’t have a working brain. But just as we might want to know why a person died, we also have reason to want to know why a country is running a trade deficit.
If a country is below its potential level of output, which means that it has higher than necessary levels of unemployment, then the trade deficit has been a factor reducing demand in the economy and increasing unemployment, as was undoubtedly the case in the United States since the collapse of the housing bubble until at least the very recent past. In this context, a lower budget deficit would reduce the trade deficit only by shrinking the economy further and in that way reducing imports. (When the economy is smaller, we buy less of everything, including imports.)
The lost output due to the trade deficit since the crash runs into the trillions of dollars. If we had more balanced trade, millions of additional workers would have had jobs and people would have been able to keep homes. This is a big deal, it is amazing that these distinguished figures don’t seem to understand the issue.
It is also striking that they tout the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing relative to European and Asian competitors. This must be their own subjective definition of competitiveness, since by the market test (the trade balance) the United States’ manufacturing sector is losing badly.
This is a question that people should be asking, as there is a considerable effort to include digital commerce in a revised NAFTA argument, as argued in a NYT column by former Secretary of State George Schultz and Pedro Aspe a former secretary of finance in Mexico. For example, the rules on digital commerce may prevent countries from imposing punitive damages, similar to what exist for copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for spreading fake ads. This is a realistic fear since Facebook and other major social media companies are likely to have substantial input into writing digital commerce provisions, whereas groups concerned about fair elections and the rights of users are not.
This piece also contains a striking error in economic reasoning. It dismisses concerns about trade deficits, telling readers:
“We hear a lot about trade deficits, but repealing trade agreements will not fix the arithmetic. If a country consumes more than it produces, it will import more than it exports. Federal deficit spending, a huge and continuing act of dissaving, is the big culprit. Control that, and you will control trade deficits.”
It is definitional that a country with a trade deficit consumes more than it produces, sort of like it is definitional that a dead person doesn’t have a working brain. But just as we might want to know why a person died, we also have reason to want to know why a country is running a trade deficit.
If a country is below its potential level of output, which means that it has higher than necessary levels of unemployment, then the trade deficit has been a factor reducing demand in the economy and increasing unemployment, as was undoubtedly the case in the United States since the collapse of the housing bubble until at least the very recent past. In this context, a lower budget deficit would reduce the trade deficit only by shrinking the economy further and in that way reducing imports. (When the economy is smaller, we buy less of everything, including imports.)
The lost output due to the trade deficit since the crash runs into the trillions of dollars. If we had more balanced trade, millions of additional workers would have had jobs and people would have been able to keep homes. This is a big deal, it is amazing that these distinguished figures don’t seem to understand the issue.
It is also striking that they tout the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing relative to European and Asian competitors. This must be their own subjective definition of competitiveness, since by the market test (the trade balance) the United States’ manufacturing sector is losing badly.
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Robert Samuelson used his column to relate concerns expressed by former Fed chair Ben Bernanke that the Fed would lack the ability to fuel a recovery when the United States next falls into a recession. Although Samuelson doesn’t go into detail, the background here is that the country has faced a persistent shortfall of demand at least since the collapse of the housing bubble.
One way this shortfall can be filled is with larger budget deficits. Unfortunately, there is intense political opposition to budget deficits fueled by people like Wall Street billionaire Peter Peterson and the Washington Post. The failure to have larger deficits have cost the country trillions of dollars in lost output and made the economy permanently weaker, in effect imposing a huge tax on our children and grandchildren in the form of lower wages.
The other obvious way that the shortfall could be filled is with a smaller trade deficit. If our trade deficits were, for example, 1.0 percent of GDP instead of the current 3.0 percent of GDP, we would not be facing a shortfall of demand and Bernanke’s problem would disappear. Unfortunately, people in policy circles largely cling to an absurd trade deficit denialism under which the size of the deficit cannot affect demand and employment, an argument which is made explicitly in an NYT column this morning by former Secretary of State George Schultz and Pedro Aspe, a former secretary of finance in Mexico.
Robert Samuelson used his column to relate concerns expressed by former Fed chair Ben Bernanke that the Fed would lack the ability to fuel a recovery when the United States next falls into a recession. Although Samuelson doesn’t go into detail, the background here is that the country has faced a persistent shortfall of demand at least since the collapse of the housing bubble.
One way this shortfall can be filled is with larger budget deficits. Unfortunately, there is intense political opposition to budget deficits fueled by people like Wall Street billionaire Peter Peterson and the Washington Post. The failure to have larger deficits have cost the country trillions of dollars in lost output and made the economy permanently weaker, in effect imposing a huge tax on our children and grandchildren in the form of lower wages.
The other obvious way that the shortfall could be filled is with a smaller trade deficit. If our trade deficits were, for example, 1.0 percent of GDP instead of the current 3.0 percent of GDP, we would not be facing a shortfall of demand and Bernanke’s problem would disappear. Unfortunately, people in policy circles largely cling to an absurd trade deficit denialism under which the size of the deficit cannot affect demand and employment, an argument which is made explicitly in an NYT column this morning by former Secretary of State George Schultz and Pedro Aspe, a former secretary of finance in Mexico.
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The Washington Post had a lengthy piece on the intense lobbying efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, along with retail drug store chains, to block legislation that would have imposed stronger penalties for improperly prescribing and distributing opioids. While the piece provides considerable detail on the efforts of specific actors to intervene with members of Congress to weaken legislation, it neglects to mention the importance of patent monopolies in this picture.
As everyone who has taken Econ 101 knows, when the government imposes a tariff in a market that raises the price of an item by 10 or 20 percent, it encourages corruption. The beneficiaries of this tariff have the incentive to lobby to try to extend and enlarge this protection. Lobbying and bribing politicians can be a more effective way to increase profits than cutting production costs or developing a better product.
In the case of patent monopolies, the price can increase by a factor of ten or even a hundred, equivalent to a tariff of 1,000 or 10,000 percent. The implied mark-ups provide an enormous incentive for companies to lobby to protect and enhance their markets. As the piece tells readers, “each 30-pill vial of oxycodone was worth $900.” If a 30-pill vial was selling for $30, there would have been much less incentive to lobby against legislation that would limit sales.
For some reason, patent monopolies and their role in maintaining high prices for opioids are never mentioned in this piece. It is probably worth mentioning that the Washington Post gets a substantial amount of advertising revenue from the pharmaceutical industry.
The Washington Post had a lengthy piece on the intense lobbying efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, along with retail drug store chains, to block legislation that would have imposed stronger penalties for improperly prescribing and distributing opioids. While the piece provides considerable detail on the efforts of specific actors to intervene with members of Congress to weaken legislation, it neglects to mention the importance of patent monopolies in this picture.
As everyone who has taken Econ 101 knows, when the government imposes a tariff in a market that raises the price of an item by 10 or 20 percent, it encourages corruption. The beneficiaries of this tariff have the incentive to lobby to try to extend and enlarge this protection. Lobbying and bribing politicians can be a more effective way to increase profits than cutting production costs or developing a better product.
In the case of patent monopolies, the price can increase by a factor of ten or even a hundred, equivalent to a tariff of 1,000 or 10,000 percent. The implied mark-ups provide an enormous incentive for companies to lobby to protect and enhance their markets. As the piece tells readers, “each 30-pill vial of oxycodone was worth $900.” If a 30-pill vial was selling for $30, there would have been much less incentive to lobby against legislation that would limit sales.
For some reason, patent monopolies and their role in maintaining high prices for opioids are never mentioned in this piece. It is probably worth mentioning that the Washington Post gets a substantial amount of advertising revenue from the pharmaceutical industry.
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Donald Trump has justified his decision to ending a subsidy for insurers providing improved coverage for moderate-income households by saying that he wanted to end subsidies for insurers. Actually, because insurers are required under the Affordable Care Act to provide these subsidies to moderate-income households whether or not they receive the government subsidies, Trump’s decision will likely lead to higher premiums. And, since the subsidy provided to moderate-income households depends on the size of the premium, the subsidies provided to these households will rise in step with the premiums.
As a result, while Trump is cutting off the direct subsidy to insurers from the government, the indirect subsidy through the government’s assistance to households buying insurance will increase by an even larger amount. As a result, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the amount the government will pay out in insurance subsidies over the next decade will increase by almost $250 billion (roughly 0.5 percent of federal spending), with the bulk of this money ending up in the pockets of insurers.
It is not clear that Trump understood that his action would increase the money going to insurers, but it would have been helpful to note this outcome.
Donald Trump has justified his decision to ending a subsidy for insurers providing improved coverage for moderate-income households by saying that he wanted to end subsidies for insurers. Actually, because insurers are required under the Affordable Care Act to provide these subsidies to moderate-income households whether or not they receive the government subsidies, Trump’s decision will likely lead to higher premiums. And, since the subsidy provided to moderate-income households depends on the size of the premium, the subsidies provided to these households will rise in step with the premiums.
As a result, while Trump is cutting off the direct subsidy to insurers from the government, the indirect subsidy through the government’s assistance to households buying insurance will increase by an even larger amount. As a result, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the amount the government will pay out in insurance subsidies over the next decade will increase by almost $250 billion (roughly 0.5 percent of federal spending), with the bulk of this money ending up in the pockets of insurers.
It is not clear that Trump understood that his action would increase the money going to insurers, but it would have been helpful to note this outcome.
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For four decades the United States has actively pursued a trade policy designed to put manufacturing workers directly in competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, while largely protecting doctors and other highly paid professionals. It has also sought to impose longer and stronger patent, copyright, and related protections on our trading partners, as it strengthened these protections at home also.
The predicted and actual effect of these policies is to redistribute income from the less-educated (those without college degrees) to more educated workers and owners of capital. Not surprisingly, many of the losers from this pattern of trade are unhappy about it and have sought paths to change it. This was one reason many less-educated workers voted for Donald Trump for president.
While the basic facts in this story are pretty clear, the NYT seems confused about them. It told readers:
“People here embraced Mr. Trump’s anti-trade message, including his vow to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and punish China, even though Canada, Mexico and China are Iowa’s three largest foreign trading partners. They did not mind if Mr. Trump opposed increasing the minimum wage and expanding access to health care.”
It is not clear what is supposed to be meant by “even though” in this context. People in Iowa would not be hurt by trade with countries if its economy was not actually involved in trade with the countries. If a manufacturer in Iowa gets many of its parts from Canada, Mexico, or China then it could be displacing workers who might otherwise be employed in Iowa. If manufacturers located in Iowa had no trade with these countries, this would not be the case. It is precisely because Iowa’s economy has been exposed to trade with these countries that its workers could end up as losers.
It is also worth noting that Trump promised to offer a better health care plan in his campaign, with lower deductibles, premiums, and co-pays. Iowa’s voters might have been more aware of the fact that he was lying if the NYT and other news outlets had spent a bit more time talking about health care and less time on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails.
For four decades the United States has actively pursued a trade policy designed to put manufacturing workers directly in competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, while largely protecting doctors and other highly paid professionals. It has also sought to impose longer and stronger patent, copyright, and related protections on our trading partners, as it strengthened these protections at home also.
The predicted and actual effect of these policies is to redistribute income from the less-educated (those without college degrees) to more educated workers and owners of capital. Not surprisingly, many of the losers from this pattern of trade are unhappy about it and have sought paths to change it. This was one reason many less-educated workers voted for Donald Trump for president.
While the basic facts in this story are pretty clear, the NYT seems confused about them. It told readers:
“People here embraced Mr. Trump’s anti-trade message, including his vow to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and punish China, even though Canada, Mexico and China are Iowa’s three largest foreign trading partners. They did not mind if Mr. Trump opposed increasing the minimum wage and expanding access to health care.”
It is not clear what is supposed to be meant by “even though” in this context. People in Iowa would not be hurt by trade with countries if its economy was not actually involved in trade with the countries. If a manufacturer in Iowa gets many of its parts from Canada, Mexico, or China then it could be displacing workers who might otherwise be employed in Iowa. If manufacturers located in Iowa had no trade with these countries, this would not be the case. It is precisely because Iowa’s economy has been exposed to trade with these countries that its workers could end up as losers.
It is also worth noting that Trump promised to offer a better health care plan in his campaign, with lower deductibles, premiums, and co-pays. Iowa’s voters might have been more aware of the fact that he was lying if the NYT and other news outlets had spent a bit more time talking about health care and less time on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails.
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Donald Trump came up with a new measure this week when he compared the wealth created by a rising stock market with the government debt. It is not clear how much the president has to do with stock valuations, but arguably his promised tax cuts may be a factor pushing the market higher.
In principle, stock prices are supposed to reflect the discounted value of future profits, so if people come to think that Trump will give corporate America more money at the expense of those who own little or no stock, it should push the market higher. This would be good news for the relatively small number of people who own large amounts of stock, but bad news for those who rely largely on wages for their income and will likely face higher taxes and/or reduced government services as a result of lower corporate tax rates.
However, even by this measure, Trump is doing poorly as the NYT pointed out. The stock markets in Japan, Germany, and France, along with many others, have risen more in the last year than the U.S. market. So it appears that Trump has been a drag on the stock market.
Also, Trump does very poorly by his metric compared with Obama. Trump blamed Obama for adding $10 trillion to the federal debt during his administration. He apparently missed the Great Recession caused by the collapse of the housing bubble which happened before Obama entered the White House. This was the major cause of the run-up in debt over the last eight years.
But if presidents get credit for an increase in stock values, then Obama’s performance vastly exceeds Trump’s. In October of 2009, the stock market was already up by more than 30 percent from where it had been on inauguration day, compared to less than 20 percent with Trump. Furthermore, the stock market more than doubled during President Obama’s tenure, creating more than $20 trillion in wealth, this hugely exceeds the government debt added in this period, so by the Trump Metric, Obama did fantastic in his terms in office.
(For the record since people, and mostly American people, own the government debt, this is also wealth. So absolutely nothing about the Trump story makes any sense.)
Donald Trump came up with a new measure this week when he compared the wealth created by a rising stock market with the government debt. It is not clear how much the president has to do with stock valuations, but arguably his promised tax cuts may be a factor pushing the market higher.
In principle, stock prices are supposed to reflect the discounted value of future profits, so if people come to think that Trump will give corporate America more money at the expense of those who own little or no stock, it should push the market higher. This would be good news for the relatively small number of people who own large amounts of stock, but bad news for those who rely largely on wages for their income and will likely face higher taxes and/or reduced government services as a result of lower corporate tax rates.
However, even by this measure, Trump is doing poorly as the NYT pointed out. The stock markets in Japan, Germany, and France, along with many others, have risen more in the last year than the U.S. market. So it appears that Trump has been a drag on the stock market.
Also, Trump does very poorly by his metric compared with Obama. Trump blamed Obama for adding $10 trillion to the federal debt during his administration. He apparently missed the Great Recession caused by the collapse of the housing bubble which happened before Obama entered the White House. This was the major cause of the run-up in debt over the last eight years.
But if presidents get credit for an increase in stock values, then Obama’s performance vastly exceeds Trump’s. In October of 2009, the stock market was already up by more than 30 percent from where it had been on inauguration day, compared to less than 20 percent with Trump. Furthermore, the stock market more than doubled during President Obama’s tenure, creating more than $20 trillion in wealth, this hugely exceeds the government debt added in this period, so by the Trump Metric, Obama did fantastic in his terms in office.
(For the record since people, and mostly American people, own the government debt, this is also wealth. So absolutely nothing about the Trump story makes any sense.)
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The same day that it ran a front page story that hyped fears of huge tariffs in the event that NAFTA is repealed, the NYT ran a column highlighting the problems of protectionism. Incredibly, the column was pushing for stronger protectionism in the form of better enforcement of copyright monopolies, without any recognition that it was pushing protectionism.
This is a great example of how elite types push protectionist policies to benefit themselves, with zero recognition that they are pushing protectionism. If anyone is confused, copyright protection is a type of protectionism, unlike the tariffs of 5–10 percent that we might see if NAFTA is repealed, copyrights raise the price of protected items by many thousand percent above their free market price.
Books, software, recorded music, movies, and other video material that could be transferred at near zero cost in the absence of copyright protection instead become hugely costly. All the models that economists use (and journalists imperfectly internalize) that show the waste caused by tariffs raising prices above the free market price apply to copyright (and patent) protection as well, except the sums involved are several orders of magnitude larger in the case of copyright protection.
Of course copyright monopolies do serve an important purpose, they provide an incentive to do creative work. However there are other more modern and efficient mechanisms that can be used. For example, I outline a tax credit system modeled on the charitable contribution tax deduction in chapter 5 of Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer (it’s free). (Seattle is doing something comparable now by giving voters vouchers for campaign contributions.)
Unfortunately, instead of considering alternatives to copyright monopolies, our elites are prepared to use ever more intrusive laws and tools for enforcement. And then they ridicule the less-educated workers who suffer from the upward redistribution caused by patent and copyright protection for not having the skills needed to succeed in the modern economy.
The same day that it ran a front page story that hyped fears of huge tariffs in the event that NAFTA is repealed, the NYT ran a column highlighting the problems of protectionism. Incredibly, the column was pushing for stronger protectionism in the form of better enforcement of copyright monopolies, without any recognition that it was pushing protectionism.
This is a great example of how elite types push protectionist policies to benefit themselves, with zero recognition that they are pushing protectionism. If anyone is confused, copyright protection is a type of protectionism, unlike the tariffs of 5–10 percent that we might see if NAFTA is repealed, copyrights raise the price of protected items by many thousand percent above their free market price.
Books, software, recorded music, movies, and other video material that could be transferred at near zero cost in the absence of copyright protection instead become hugely costly. All the models that economists use (and journalists imperfectly internalize) that show the waste caused by tariffs raising prices above the free market price apply to copyright (and patent) protection as well, except the sums involved are several orders of magnitude larger in the case of copyright protection.
Of course copyright monopolies do serve an important purpose, they provide an incentive to do creative work. However there are other more modern and efficient mechanisms that can be used. For example, I outline a tax credit system modeled on the charitable contribution tax deduction in chapter 5 of Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer (it’s free). (Seattle is doing something comparable now by giving voters vouchers for campaign contributions.)
Unfortunately, instead of considering alternatives to copyright monopolies, our elites are prepared to use ever more intrusive laws and tools for enforcement. And then they ridicule the less-educated workers who suffer from the upward redistribution caused by patent and copyright protection for not having the skills needed to succeed in the modern economy.
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For many years before and after the Affordable Care Act went into effect, many policy-types argued that its success or failure would depend on whether the “young invincibles” would sign up for health care insurance. The argument was that the system needed premiums from young people with few medical expenses in order to balance out the cost of providing care to less healthy people.
The problem with this story is that it is not just young people who have low medical expenses: most older people (pre-Medicare age) also have relatively low health care expenses. In fact, the older healthy people help the finances of the system more since the premiums for the 55 to 64 age bracket average three times the premiums of the youngest age bracket. If we have a healthy young person and a healthy old person, both of whom cost the system nothing, we are much better off if we can get three times the premium from the older person.
The Kaiser Family Foundation did a nice analysis of this issue a few years back showing that even extreme skewing of enrollment by age made relatively little difference to the finances of the system. On the other hand, skewing by health makes an enormous difference.
Vox had a nice piece on the issue of the skewing of the patient pool in the context of President Trump’s executive order allowing insurers to offer bare-bones plans that would only be attractive to healthy people. The piece pointed out that Tennessee already has a plan along the lines authorized by Trump and that it has pulled 23,000 people out of the exchanges. It points out that insurance premiums on the Tennessee exchange are among the highest in the country, presumably because more healthy people have been removed from the pool.
However, in making this case, it tells readers:
“Those 23,000 people buying the skimpier health plan are presumably younger and healthier.”
While it is very likely that the people buying into the bare-bones plan offered in Tennessee are healthier than the population as a whole, there is no reason to assume they are younger. In fact, the older pre-Medicare age group may actually save more money from this plan than younger people.
So let’s leave the age issue out of the discussion, it just generates needless confusion. To keep costs down an insurance pool needs healthy people, it doesn’t matter how old they are.
For many years before and after the Affordable Care Act went into effect, many policy-types argued that its success or failure would depend on whether the “young invincibles” would sign up for health care insurance. The argument was that the system needed premiums from young people with few medical expenses in order to balance out the cost of providing care to less healthy people.
The problem with this story is that it is not just young people who have low medical expenses: most older people (pre-Medicare age) also have relatively low health care expenses. In fact, the older healthy people help the finances of the system more since the premiums for the 55 to 64 age bracket average three times the premiums of the youngest age bracket. If we have a healthy young person and a healthy old person, both of whom cost the system nothing, we are much better off if we can get three times the premium from the older person.
The Kaiser Family Foundation did a nice analysis of this issue a few years back showing that even extreme skewing of enrollment by age made relatively little difference to the finances of the system. On the other hand, skewing by health makes an enormous difference.
Vox had a nice piece on the issue of the skewing of the patient pool in the context of President Trump’s executive order allowing insurers to offer bare-bones plans that would only be attractive to healthy people. The piece pointed out that Tennessee already has a plan along the lines authorized by Trump and that it has pulled 23,000 people out of the exchanges. It points out that insurance premiums on the Tennessee exchange are among the highest in the country, presumably because more healthy people have been removed from the pool.
However, in making this case, it tells readers:
“Those 23,000 people buying the skimpier health plan are presumably younger and healthier.”
While it is very likely that the people buying into the bare-bones plan offered in Tennessee are healthier than the population as a whole, there is no reason to assume they are younger. In fact, the older pre-Medicare age group may actually save more money from this plan than younger people.
So let’s leave the age issue out of the discussion, it just generates needless confusion. To keep costs down an insurance pool needs healthy people, it doesn’t matter how old they are.
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Eduardo Porter had an interesting column on how smaller cities are less resilient to economic shocks than larger ones. As a result, they have been losing jobs and people, while larger cities have been gaining them. While the piece makes many interesting points it is misleading in describing this pattern as a natural outcome from technology:
“As technology continues to make inroads into the economy — transforming industries from energy and retail to health care and transportation — it bodes ill for the future of such areas.”
The distribution of the benefits from technology is determined to a very large extent by policies on patent, copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property. Bill Gates, the richest person in the world, would probably still be working for a living if not for the copyright and patent monopolies he holds on Windows, Word, and other types of software.
While these monopolies serve a purpose — they provide an incentive to innovate and produce creative work — they are policies, not facts of nature. It is wrong to treat them as being simply given and unchangeable. We have made these forms of protection longer and stronger over the last four decades, which redistributes more money from the bulk of the population to the people in a position to benefit from these forms of protectionism.
We could decide going forward that the benefits from strengthening these protections, insofar as they exist, do not outweigh the costs in terms of greater inequality. We could also look to more modern and efficient mechanisms for supporting innovation and creative work.
In any case, it is simply wrong to imply that it is technology that has benefited large cities at the expense of the rest of the country. It was conscious policy. This basic fact needs to be acknowledged in any serious discussion of the topic.
Eduardo Porter had an interesting column on how smaller cities are less resilient to economic shocks than larger ones. As a result, they have been losing jobs and people, while larger cities have been gaining them. While the piece makes many interesting points it is misleading in describing this pattern as a natural outcome from technology:
“As technology continues to make inroads into the economy — transforming industries from energy and retail to health care and transportation — it bodes ill for the future of such areas.”
The distribution of the benefits from technology is determined to a very large extent by policies on patent, copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property. Bill Gates, the richest person in the world, would probably still be working for a living if not for the copyright and patent monopolies he holds on Windows, Word, and other types of software.
While these monopolies serve a purpose — they provide an incentive to innovate and produce creative work — they are policies, not facts of nature. It is wrong to treat them as being simply given and unchangeable. We have made these forms of protection longer and stronger over the last four decades, which redistributes more money from the bulk of the population to the people in a position to benefit from these forms of protectionism.
We could decide going forward that the benefits from strengthening these protections, insofar as they exist, do not outweigh the costs in terms of greater inequality. We could also look to more modern and efficient mechanisms for supporting innovation and creative work.
In any case, it is simply wrong to imply that it is technology that has benefited large cities at the expense of the rest of the country. It was conscious policy. This basic fact needs to be acknowledged in any serious discussion of the topic.
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