A "Right to Cheap Streisand"?
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"What kind of fool..."
Meanwhile, note the sotto voce implication of invoking the status of the stadium as "public property" (which, of course, it should not be in the first place). What difference does it make whether the Stadio Flaminio is "public property" — unless of course the people willing and able to pay the higher prices are not to be considered part of the "public"? Apparently "public property" in fact doesn't mean "for the public" at all, but rather for a subset of the public only — those too poor, or too stingy, to buy a ticket.
A concert is a scarce good: there are 24,000 seats; they must be rationed. What better way to ration than to have those who value Barbra Streisand the most (as evidence by their willingness to pay) actually pay and go? How would an alternative rationing system (e.g., a lottery) do any better a job at maximizing (the fiction of) "social welfare" better than having those who want to go the most actually go?
Or is the suggestion that Streisand should be constrained in her liberty to charge whatever price she sees fit? Which simply means that it is not the Stadio Flaminio that is "public property," but Barbra Streisand herself — that she is in fact just another "resource" to be "exploited" for the "common good."
Either that, or perhaps the groups simply want the government (i.e., the taxpayer) to underwrite the concert — in which case every person who does not attend the concert, and who doesn't want to attend the concert, toils for those who do. This is what modern socialist Europeans consider "social justice."
"A funny kind of proposal..."
Barbra Streisand's concert in Rome next month should be cancelled because of excessively high ticket prices, consumer groups in Italy have said.This is the mindset of modern socialist Europe: A pop concert is "immoral." A voluntary exchange among competent consenting adults is "shameful." There is a "right to cheap Streisand."
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Prices, ranging from 150 euros to more than 900 euros, were "absurd and shameful", the groups said.
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The 24,000-seat [Stadio Flaminio] "is public property and cannot be used for immoral deals that are shameful to a civilized country", [the groups] said.
Meanwhile, note the sotto voce implication of invoking the status of the stadium as "public property" (which, of course, it should not be in the first place). What difference does it make whether the Stadio Flaminio is "public property" — unless of course the people willing and able to pay the higher prices are not to be considered part of the "public"? Apparently "public property" in fact doesn't mean "for the public" at all, but rather for a subset of the public only — those too poor, or too stingy, to buy a ticket.
A concert is a scarce good: there are 24,000 seats; they must be rationed. What better way to ration than to have those who value Barbra Streisand the most (as evidence by their willingness to pay) actually pay and go? How would an alternative rationing system (e.g., a lottery) do any better a job at maximizing (the fiction of) "social welfare" better than having those who want to go the most actually go?
Or is the suggestion that Streisand should be constrained in her liberty to charge whatever price she sees fit? Which simply means that it is not the Stadio Flaminio that is "public property," but Barbra Streisand herself — that she is in fact just another "resource" to be "exploited" for the "common good."
Either that, or perhaps the groups simply want the government (i.e., the taxpayer) to underwrite the concert — in which case every person who does not attend the concert, and who doesn't want to attend the concert, toils for those who do. This is what modern socialist Europeans consider "social justice."
"A funny kind of proposal..."
Related Posts (on one page):
- A "Right to Cheap Streisand"?
- A "Right to Free Netflix"?
Posted by Kip on
23 May 2007
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