A Weak Defense of Textbooks
Although the big scandal this week in the textbook industry is the news (not actually all that new, but previously unreported) that
textbooks sold in the US are more expensive than the same textbook sold in other countries.
First, lets look at the textbook industry itself. Like any other industry, it exists, at least in large part, to make a profit. I've authored or co-authored several tradebooks and textbooks, and I did that work--hundreds of hours on most of those projects--to make a profit. In our culture, that's not necessarily evil: if an organization wants to do good work, and to continue to do good work, there's not an easy way around the fact that bills have to be paid, employees have to be paid, etc. I won't go into the complexities of arguing for or against a socialist system of work, except to say that I don't see it coming real soon to a community near me except in little pockets and pools. So making a profit itself isn't necessarily evil, unless you buy into that whole "contamination" theory of money. I'm a leftist, but i don't buy into that (pun not intended).
Second, producing textbooks isn't cheap. Although academics are a group that, in general, gives freely of its time, I also think that they sometimes deserve to be paid for their effort. Textbook authoring, for example, are not highly valued by my own University. It shows up on my annual reports, but it's never going to net me a lot either in status or pay. So I expect to be paid for the hundreds of hours I mentioned above. Additionally, although a handful of textbooks take off and make millions, many more actually lose money, sometimes big chunks of money. And the author's work is not the only cost of producing a textbook--in addition to expected things like marketing, printing, and shipping, textbooks require effort on the part of graphic designers, editors, proofreaders, and (in some cases) programmers, usability experts, information architects, media specialists, and website designers. One textbook I co-authored clearly cost, in advance royalties and wages, something in the low to medium six-figure range. I think this book will eventually turn a profit, but it's an iffy thing. So the money for any specific textbook typically also includes a substantial R&D cost to cover a range of successfully
and failed projects. (I make a similar argument to myself every time I buy an Apple product rather than a knock-off--I'm paying for R&D.)
Third, the prices of goods, at least in our culture(s), are at least partially determined by market demand. I know this doesn't hold water in every case, and there are certainly companies like Enron that have jiggered with markets and regulations in order to artificially drive prices up or down.
And markets aren't perfect--in fact, that's the point.
In a completely transnational, global economy, goods would flow freely to whomever wanted to pay for them, without issues like differential income levels in some countries, or tariffs, or trade embargos. But, instead, capitalism relies at least partially on the idea of differential growth: Some areas have higher wages than others; some areas will pay more for products than others. Textbooks are part of that pattern. So the market price for a textbook in Mexico is different than the market price for the same book in New York is different than the market price for the same book in Peru. The educational system in the US is so highly stuctured that it will currently bear a higher market price for books. Will that last? I don't know--I'm guess it will. (What will likely happen is that the market will begin to focus on online information space purchases rather than print texts--software will probably replace static text. But that may actually be used as a justification to drive up prices.)
All of this is relatively self-serving. As I said above, I do profit from this market. Are these all just rationalizations? I don't think so. Could the textbook industry sell books more cheaply? Perhaps, but not dramatically so while maintaining an active R&D program. Is life fair? Only sometimes, and sometimes only a little.
I'm currently finishing up book projects including an edited collection (with Stuart Selber) called
Central Works for Oxford (see tentative cover sketch below) and two others. 
Posted by johndan at October 23, 2003 09:24 AM
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