I think this pretty much is the right answer. If the market was allowed to dictate, there would be a thriving child pornography industry, drugs, murder-for-hire, prostitution etc etc. Clearly, these thing do go on, but on a clandestine, sub-rosa level and are all punishable by law. Society doesn’t want certain things and passes laws to prevent them. Telemarketing is considered harrassment and now it will be curtailed.
Catch and Release: Synopsis of the Criminal Justice System
Yes, but this is not the same thing as determining the maximized well-being, if I am understanding the term “well-being” correctly.
No, it is utilitarian that one attempt to measure well-being and use it as the standard, that is, “The most happiness for the greatest number of people” and all that. But I think there are problems with this; for example, a solution to telemarketing annoyance that just barely pleases a whole lot of phone owners but really disappoints the number of people forced to look for extra work. Frankly, the cost of having to screen my phone calls is one I’m willing to bear because I already screen my phone calls. I don’t always want to talk to mom, you know? So I absorb that cost without really even thinking about it.
Wait, are you arguing that people should have to put up with telephone harassment from telemarketers because it creates jobs? Whether there is a “market” solution or a regulatory solution to the telemarketing problem, it will put telemarketers out of work either way. Even if we assume that everyone is happy with screening all their phone calls (which they are not), nobody is going to pay people to simply place unanswered calls all day. If we are going to adopt a makework strategy for battling unemployment, the makework should at least be something that doesn’t inconvenience the majority of the population.
True. I was merely using that as an example of how some would consider very abstract ideas to expressable in concrete terms.
I don’t think that determining what the maximum of utility, welfare, or well-being is should be the real concern; rather, knowing that there is a maximum and that the maximum is reliably obtainable through a particular method gives us an obligation to go first to that method, then figure out whether the solution it gives is acceptable.
Such as the do-not-call registry. I don’t see this as correcting a market failure. To correct the failure, we need to make the telemarketers bear the full cost of each telephone call they make, which is not what the do-not-call registry does. Something closer to optimal would be to make the telemarketers pay each call recipient an amount that’s enough to cover the pain of annoyance. That payment will be accounted for in the price that they charge their customers for their service. Making the economic actor bear the full cost of her actions is to correct a distortion that arises from the way the market happens to work in this case. Correcting a distortion is inherently welfare increasing. In reality it may have been wiser to tax telemarketers for each call that is made, thus raising the price and reducing the amount of telemarketing demanded. Those tax revenues could then be funneled into some sort of telecom subsidy, disbursed to recipients of telemarketing calls, or put into job training for displaced telemarketers, inter alia.
It is perfectly conceivable that the do-not-call registry is actually a solution worse than the situation that prompted it. That’s a fair question, IMO.
I’m kinda brain dead right now. I’m not sure if that makes any sense or even addresses what you were getting at.
I’m not calling it harassment. And I was just approaching it from a maximum utility angle. Telemarketers can do their thing as far as I’m concerned. The same thing that enables telemarketers also enable phone surveys that I do enjoy participating in.
but such an assumption isn’t necessary. We know there are people that like telemarketing, more or less, at least to the extent that telemarketing firms exist and make money. We know that there are others who dislike it enough that they want to create legislation aimed against telemarketing. Typical dichotomy where we cannot please everyone.
Well I was just commenting that, if our goal is maximum pleasure, we should consider people who would be put out of work by this, not just people who would be marginally happier by not receiving the odd phone call. It is a fair analysis. It was not meant to be a comment on unemployment.
So I take it you did not sign up for the do-not-call list?
I really think you are in a very small minority. I know of very few people who enjoy telemarketing calls. Most people consider it harassment.
I disagree. That’s like saying people like organized crime because the Mafia makes money. Through sheer volume - millions and millions of calls - they manage to goad a few people into buying things. It’s only profitable for them because they pay the callers very little. That doesn’t mean people like it.
So the argument does not stand alone, and is only valid when compared to your assertion that people would only be “marginally happier”. But the intense interest in the do-not-call list shown by a huge number of people belies that. It’s not merely the “odd phone call”, it’s a daily stream of phone calls. Many in this forum have said they get as many as 10 per day. Personally, I get more telemarketing calls than I get legitimate ones! This is not the trivial matter you paint it to be.
Great responses. Every post seems to have something thoughtful in it.
One thing that has come up in a number of posts is the issue of reputation: a number of people seem to suggest that even if phone companies had offered a no-cold-call option in their service contracts, they would not have been believed by consumers. This is an interesting point. It is obviously what stops me from clicking “reply here to be removed” when I get a spam email, but I trusted the Chicago Reader to keep my details confidential when I joined up here. In neither case did I have direct evidence. A generalised lack of trust in large firms and a belief that phone companies would be unable to resist the temptation to cheat for short-term gain would stop a market-based solution from emerging. I remember years ago seeing a transcript of a court case that described Lloyds as having a “centuries old reputation for fair dealing”, and I wonder whether any company these days has the reputation sufficient to make customers believe that they will eschew short-term gain for long-term profit. Perhaps that’s another thread.
Can anyone tell me whether phone companies opposed this move? I’m still unclear about whether this is good for phone companies. It surely increases the value of their services for many consumers, but it decreases the paid traffic on their networks at a non-peak period.
I like ElvisL1ves’ pollution analogy, and intend to steal it. Also blowero’s suggestion that observing that the fact that people pay protection money does not mean they like the mafia.
I dunno. I suspect the phone companies could insist on certain standards - like being a member of a proper association - as a condition of access for business customers. This indeed is what I suspect a market solution would look like. This goes to what I said in the OP about whether this was a market failure or a failure in markets due to government (in)activity.
This is an important point. Of course, some sort of standard from a foreign company could be contractually required by the domestic company. And calling from overseas will be more costly. But generally the point is sound - the advantage of consumer-end technological solutions is that you can’t be weaselled out of your peace by the definition of telemarketers or them shifting location.
That may be so. The voting public has yet to meet an expenditure item that benefits them or a tax cut that applies to them they didn’t like.
Erislover and blowero had a brief exchange about jobs. Yes, adjustment in the telemarketing industry will be painful, and we should care about the people affected. But in ten years time, this will have no effect on unemployment. Other industries will expand if telemarketing contracts.
(also mentioned by others, including constantine, who intriguingly suggests a bond system for telemarketers)
and
These quotes raise several really interesting and difficult questions. We are, after all, in a world where we don’t always know the opportunities available to us. We are not in a world of given information, where markets merely allocate goods to their highest valuing user. The market process also informs and creates. Telemarketing currently consists of some people using the cheapness other people’s time to con them into signing up for some dubious deal and some others providing real information that people can use for their benefit. What you’d like to do is keep the latter. I don’t accept the idea that all telemarketing is scam.
Von Hayek said something like “You can’t plan the outcomes of markets, but you can plan for markets”. And that, clearly, is a problem with a “do not call” list: I don’t know what opportunities are out there. I don’t want people to call me who are only calling me because they don’t face the cost of my time, but I do want people to call me who (probabilistically) reckon they have information that could benefit me. A non-market solution like the “do not call” list is going to stop both sorts of calls.
Nah.
I know a lot of drug users that would agree with that sentiment, actually.
When you butted in the discussion, that was the context of the analysis, yes. Not receiving telemarketing calls is quite likely a clean bathroom problem. People largely expect to only receive phone calls they desire, much like people largely expect clean bathrooms in public places. Should a celan bathroom be there, there is no actual notice of it and no increase in benefit or perceived value, but should it be lacking then there is a decrease in perceived value. should you not receive telemarketing calls, it won’t actually do much to the perceived value of having a phone. This is what I would consider a marginal increase in happiness. For those that have received telemarketing calls and found it a nuisance there will be a brief period where the lack is noticed until expectations return to normal. For those that have never received them, they wouldn’t notice it and telemarketing legislation won’t increase this general well-being / perceived value at all.
I don’t consider myself to be painting it as a general trivial matter. It is a question of market failure, the general thrust of which is that the market is not achieving the optimal solution. This requires a means of measuring the various states the phone situation can be in and noting the measured or extrapolated or hypothesized general well-being (as far as js and I have been discussing, anyway) and seeing which one comes out on top. A fair analysis requires the consideration of those that make as well as receive the phone calls. That is all I mentioned.
I think a “do not call” list is the wrong way to address the issue, but only as a matter of principle. I think people should have put more pressure on phone service providers to create a market solution. It is not a failure of the market to provide food for me if I am too lazy to do anything about it.
If enough people support action enough that legislation should pass, enough people should be able, in most circumstances, to affect a market solution. That’s MHO.
This is precisely my issue with it. I don’t like random telemarketing calls, but I do enjoy when companies I am already associated with send me information, like credit card companies calling about low interest balance transfers, for example. It is much easier for information to be disseminated than requested, most people simply won’t take the time to dig into every little nuance. Also, I like participating in phone surveys. It pleases me to know that there are companies and other associations taking the time to find out about general public opinion, or even targeted opinions, and I want to encourage that behavior (with the expectations that it is one stone laid on the path to a more direct democracy politically, and a more open market economically as the case may be).
A “do not call” list is a fuel-air bomb solution to an ant problem. MHO.
Sorry, I didn’t know you were having a private conversation on a public message board.
WTF? This sounds to me like a long-winded way of saying “If there’s no problem, you won’t notice a problem”. Sounds suspiciously like a tautology.
Huh, whaaaa? I’m sure people don’t notice that their microwave oven doesn’t zap them with radiation; does that mean there should be no regulations on their manufacturing? Is a microwave oven that doesn’t kill you only marginally superior to one that does kill you, simply by virtue of the fact that you don’t notice that it’s not killing you?
The point being: Just because you don’t notice a benefit does not mean the benefit does not exist.
I disagree. When a group of people is employed in an enterprise that is of little benefit to society, and serves only to annoy the vast majority of the population, I think it’s disingenous to lament the loss of those jobs. You seem to want your argument both ways; you want to factor in the loss of jobs in your “analysis”, yet claim that it’s not a “comment of unemployment”. Well you can’t just throw out arguments and then claim immunity from criticism of those arguments. Besides which, you have no proof that telemarketing jobs lost won’t simply be replaced by jobs in other sectors. I seriously doubt that free-enterprise will grind to a halt because of this legislation.
How would you suggest people could have done that? Since no phone companies were offering telemarketer-free service, we couldn’t “take our business elsewhere”. And since a phone is for all practical purposes a necessity in modern life, we couldn’t stop patronizing phone companies altogether either. That basically leaves complaining as the only option. And consumers have been screaming like banshees about it. You would seriously have to live on another planet to be unaware that the vast majority of Americans do not want telemarketing calls. After years and years of more and more deafening public outcry, and no solution in sight, the legislature finally stepped in and did something about it.
Again I ask what supposedly non-“lazy” people should have done.
I think not. If the outcry was enough that the legislature heard it, surely the phone companies should have heard it long before that. Obviously, the phone companies turned a deaf ear to consumers because they mistakenly thought they had us by the balls. Either that, or they were simply unable to effect a solution. Either way, it was necessary for the government to step in.
IIRC, all those things are exempted from the DNC list, and will not be curtailed. The only thing that will be stopped is random telemarketing calls, which just happens to be the one thing you said you don’t like.
Glad to help. Toss in government protection of privacy rights, too, if you like - but those don’t quantify easily in Econ 101.
Well, I wasn’t, but neither did you pick up the context that was going on and took what I said out of it to make your point.
If there’s no problem, you won’t notice the lack of one in this case (I contest). If this is a tautology, you don’t encounter enough problems! 
I do notice when there’s no traffic driving to work, for example. Do you notice every day you don’t receive telemarketing calls?
No, but what if a really large group of people stopped paying their bills until their demands were met? Do you suppose this could have been a solution, given the number of people you think exist that hate telemarketing calls? How much impact do you think this would have compared to all the revenue that would be lost from stopping telemarketing WRT phone company and its employees? Why wouldn’t/didn’t this work? Most importantly, if this mechanism was viable, why go the legislative route? Why, for example, do unions bicker over contracts rather than getting local legislation passed? (that’s rhetorical, of course)
I’m not asking you to. I’m saying if we are trying to measure maximum well-being, these are people who have well-being and indeed that needs to be considered for a fair analysis.
I didn’t call anyone lazy or not. I was addressing the issue of “how can we tell if this is a market failure?”
I’m sure they did. They simply refused to provide the service requested. This is not necessarily indicative of a market failure.
Why was it necessary? Which is to ask, why did this particular thing need to be? There are many things we want in life but we don’t vote ourselves rich. Why is this an example of something that obviously needed addressing but could only be done so by law? Why weren’t there market forces that existed that could cover this? If I’mnot mistaken, that’s the question at hand.
Not enough to want legislation about it, that’s for sure.
Absolutely. But even if I didn’t, that wouldn’t mean it’s only “marginally” better. I’m sorry, but that just makes no sense.
If you stop paying your bill, they cut off your service. Since you need to have a phone, the phone company holds all the cards. I can’t believe you are seriously suggesting trying to organize a nationwide payment strike on phone companies would have been a better solution than the do-not-call list. Such a strike would be exceedingly difficult. Remember the “Great Gas Out”? The idea was to boycott gasoline to get the companies to lower the prices. It got a huge amount of publicity, but was still a dismal failure. You can’t boycott something that is a virtual neccessity. And the problem is further exacerbated by the fact that not paying your phone bill can irreparably damage your credit rating. So you wouldn’t just be screwing the phone company; you’d be screwing up your whole LIFE.
Sorry, I don’t follow you.
Actually, there is FEDERAL legislation already in existence. It’s called the minimum wage and OSHA. Again, it’s a perfectly legitimate role of government to legislate standards for such things.
But you seem to think that “consideration” means not listening to any arguments against it.
Of course you did; the word “lazy” is right there in your post for all to see. I didn’t accuse you of calling a specific person lazy, but you most certainly used the word.
:dubious:
You’re ignoring the context of my statement. I said that since the phone companies were not providing the service that people wanted, it was necessary for the government to step in. IOW, it was necessary in order for people to get the service they desire.
Are you saying that since we don’t have everything we want, we shouldn’t have anything we want? I don’t see how one is an effective argument against the other.
Dunno, you tell me. There obviously weren’t, because it didn’t happen. I don’t know what they’re teaching in Econ classes, but this theoretical reversal of the facts always cracks me up. It’s like people are saying: “Well, if consumers wanted x, then economic theory states that they would have gotten x. Therefore they didn’t want it.” Pretty Orwellian logic if you ask me.
That same ass-backwards reasoning always comes up in the smoking debates, too as an argument against legislation. Someone invariably makes the argument, “Well, if enough people want non-smoking venues, then they would exist, because economic theory tells us so.”:rolleyes:
Obviously, the millions of people who signed up for the list disagree. Personally, I’m ecstatic about it. It may not work, but if it does it will be wonderful.
Well, receiving something that I wouldn’t really notice when I had it isn’t something I consider more than a marginal improvement.
THE phone company?
So in other words, the cost to impliment this would be more than the cost of just dealing with the phone calls?
If there were so many consumers that desired such a service, why didn’t the phone company jump at the opportunity to provide such a service? Answering this might help us understand whether this is legislative fiat or a genuine correction of a failure in the market.
Who said it wasn’t?
Yes, if I am considering “people’s well-being” I have a hard time listening to arguments along the lines of “except those people”. You got me!
I didn’t deny using the word. But I didn’t call anyone or any group of people lazy. Which is what I denied.
Which is true if the people are always right, sure. Again, was the failure to provide this service a market failure? The answer, “The only way we could get it is by legislation” is not really an answer to that, from the outline of “market failure” that I have been given in this post, and what I recall from my own investigations.
Perhaps.
No, are you saying that whenever we don’t get what we want, we try and make a law ensuring we get it anyway?
That’d be great if that’s what anyone in this thread was saying. I’m not suggesting people didn’t want it. I’m suggesting that it is not clear, to me, at this point, that this was a market failure, due to the pecularities of telephone service and whether or not legitimate and reasonable-costing solutions existed that simply weren’t utilized.
That’s just like the arguments I hear in those smoking threads… cough
You said that; I refuted it; you just re-iterated it. Sorry, but it has been refuted already.
Yes, the phone company that you suggested withholding payment from. Please keep up with the train of thought; don’t take things out of context.
It’s ILLEGAL to refuse to pay your phone bill. Surely cost-benefit analyses are not supposed to include hypothetical illegal actions.
How interesting that you imagined that argument.
Nobody accused you doing so - not sure why you felt it necessary to deny it.
I really get weary of this constant “bait-and-switch” arguing that goes on here. You clearly stated that you are opposed to the DNC list, yet when I argue why one should be in favor of it, you cry foul. If you wish to only argue the very narrow question: Was this a market failure?, you would need to restrict your own arguments to that question. Personally, I’m finding this thread to be more and more pedantic and silly.
Uh, no - that’s the strawman position you tried to attribute to me, which is why I explained that not getting EVERYTHING we want does not mean we shouldn’t get ANYTHING we want. I thought I was pretty clear about that.
As I mentioned before, you did not restrict your arguments to that question.
I’m sure you think you’re being ironic, but your point is not at all clear. I made a coherent argument as to why a particular line of reasoning was invalid, then pointed out that a similar line of reasoning has also been used in other threads. What you quoted is in no way similar. Did you fail to understand the crux of my argument?
You refuted how I consider something? What crucial ESP-derived bit of information did you come across?
THE phone company, as in, the ONLY phone company? Do you think that there was a telecommunications monopoly enforced by the government for a period of time might be a bit of information necessary to answer the question, “Is the “Do Not Call” list a correction of a market failure?”
:dubious:
Ok, what does “against it” refer to in response to “considering people’s well being”? Am I not supposed to consider anyone’s well-being, then? That seems suspect as there wouldn’t even be motivation for a do-not-call list.
Because whether or not you are in favor of it, the question I was trying to work on, “Is the ‘Do Not Call’ list a correction of a market failure?” isn’t addressed by that. I’m quite sure people exist that are in favor of it. How does that answer or deal with the OP in any way, shape, or form?
Yes, I want to address the OP.
Please show me where I made arguments that did not attempt to stick to the OP.
I did?
The monopoly isn’t only the government’s fault, there’s a technical aspect to it as well. It’s easy to have competition in the wireless market today, but the kind of telephone service that gets telemarketing calls is delivered to the home by a wire. Someone has to own all those wires.
A new phone company would have to either buy the wires in a certain area, essentially switching the old monopoly for a new one, or build its own set of wires, which would cost a ton of money (money that their customers must eventually pay) and take months or years to complete.
Sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about now.
I SAID no. Are you somehow unable to read my answers? THE PHONE COMPANY IN YOUR EXAMPLE THAT YOU SUGGESTED CONSUMERS WITHHOLD PAYMENT FROM. Not the ONLY phone company, the one I frigging SAID. Don’t keep asking me the same question when I already told you that’s not what I meant, for Christ’s sake! Geez, you are really hell-bent on putting words in my mouth, aren’t you?
YOU made the argument that the jobs of telemarketers are more important than the desire of people to not have their privacy constantly invaded by a ringing phone. You based this on your assessment that not getting telemarketing calls is only a “marginal” improvement. I disagreed with your assessment. Then you claimed that my argument was irrelevant. You’re making arguments, and then trying to wave away any contrary viewpoints by saying “Oh, but I’m doing a market analysis”, as if that magically makes all your facts correct.
You have made quite a few statements that you, personally, are opposed to the DNC list, including but not limited to:
All statements of your preference for not having a DNC list, and all outside the scope of the narrow question, “Was it a market failure?”
Yes.
Never.
Dude, you asked me some of those questions! Unbelievable.
Since my “never” response possibly isn’t clear, I will restate what I said. I simply said that if we were approaching this from a maximum utility/happiness/etc angle, then we should also include the loss of happiness of telemarketing workers losing their jobs, as we should consider the loss of revenue for phone companies, and so on.
It was never, ever, ever, ever, ever in a million years meant to say anything you seem to want it to over the past million responses.
Also, I like the revision from “arguments” to “comments” in your last post. I am aware I used the word “lazy” as I am aware I have made comments that in fact strayed from the OP.