Hacker News Reader

Comment by noarchy | Hacker News Reader

If the French really believed this, as a people, then the government would not need to intervene. Amazon would lose on its own merit. This is a vocal minority at work, comprised of the losing side (smaller bookstores), and sympathetic legislators.

View on HN

I'm generally against protectionist policies. However, the lawmakers might view this as a tragedy of the commons situation. Perhaps the people believe that they're better off if everyone in society collectively shops at small retailers that employ the locals, but any individual is better off defecting and getting a low price online harming society while helping themselves. In the same way, we still need pollution regulation even if we all agree pollution is harmful because to the individual much of the cost of pollution is borne by others. I personally don't believe that's the way to view this situation, but the French lawmakers might.

If the citizens of the US of A really believed in their right to Privacy and the rest of nice stuff provided by their Constitution, they should already be at war with their current government.

(Exaggerated obviously, you get the point)

Your point is well taken. One big difference here, though, is that it is considerably easier to decide not to shop with Amazon than it is to opt-out of NSA spying, or any other government activity. I can decide to never deal with Amazon, and I can't get arrested or fined as a result.

Yeah obviously, but my main point is that the world would be better if we were less apathetic.

I don't trust any government, but I don't trust my group of fellows citizens either. Check out Gustave LeBon :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crowd:_A_Study_of_the_Popul...

Or you could view it as a collective action problem which the french government is solving. Which is one of the reasons for government in the first place. Actually, perhaps you should google "tragedy of the commons" because you appear not to believe in such things.

Trying to apply the idea of the "tragedy of the commons" to this scenario seems like hyperbole. I throw your own recommendation back to you.

This really seems to be a solution without a problem, for the majority of people in France. Those who are on the losing end of Amazon's success are fortunate to have the ear of legislators there.

Governments have longer vision than the general public, and see knock-on effects much further down the track. It's not to say that governments are visionary, but they're used to thinking in the longer term. One example is that the usual time to pass all your unpopular legislation is right after you've been elected, because it will have been forgotten about by the next election, unless it was a real stinker.

Another example is that governments have to be aware of growth patterns to plan infrastructure - they're operating at a different scale. Individuals often don't see the forest for the trees.

The 'free market' argument is really bad at long-term planning.

So above when you said "The French believe that culture is important" you meant the French Government. Not the short sighted People of France, who you believe need to be protected by the long sighted wise government.

Governments never make short sighted political decisions to protect entrenched interests. The People on the the other hand have to be protected from getting discounts and free shipping. Because that would be a bad financial option for them.

Thanks by the way, I needed a laugh today.

Myopic comments like this are really irritating. Who do you think votes the French government in? The Germans?

Democracies tend to gravitate around the center of what their people want. If the people consistently vote to one side, then the centre will move to that side. This is a cultural process of years - and yes, you're exhibiting exactly the forest-for-the-trees thinking I was talking about.

Sorry, didn't mean to be so myopic and iritating.

To answer your question, I think the same people voted for the French governement as the ones who are daily clicking on Amazon quite happily.

Do you think they are mistaking forests for trees when clicking on Amazon, but expressing great wisdom when voting?

Do you think that when the politicians voted on this particular law, they were thinking of the people or the business interests that fund them?

If you can't take derision of your comments in stride, then you shouldn't start that ball rolling yourself.

mistaking forests for trees - That is not what that idiom means. It has nothing to do with being confused or being mistaken.

but expressing great wisdom when voting - No, but what you're doing here is reclassifying my attempts at discussing nuance into a silly dichotomy of extremes. Even if nothing else, I never said the French were wise - nor unwise for that matter. That's you trying to strawman me into a ridiculous position. I said that long-term, over the course of years, democracies settles around certain tenets. For the French, the importance of culture is one of them.

You're free to have the last comment, as I'm done here.

"Governments" (and by that we mean politicians) don't have a vision past the next election and what it would take to get elected. Public Choice Theory 101.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com