You’re becoming a nay-sayer. This is the second voucher type scheme that you’ve argued against and you are still pro-conscription on student unionism.
– Sinclair Davidson, 23 July 2009
A constantly negative person isn’t much fun to be around. But being a policy nay-sayer is, for a classical liberal activist, part of the job description. There are endless suggestions for more government spending and regulation, and so there must also be endless criticisms of those proposals.
Most classical liberals join in the nay-saying. But perhaps where I differ from the others is that, as I argued in my big government conservatism article a few years ago, I believe that pressures for big government come from within centre-right politics, as well as the usual suspects of left-wing ideas, interest group rent-seeking, and politicians’ vote-buying.
I’d at least like to see Julie and Sinclair work through in more detail the tensions in their overall position. Sinclair has published several papers on lower tax with the CIS. Since she joined the IPA, Julie has published regularly on the need to contain government spending and reduce taxes. I agree entirely with those goals – but I am not at all clear on how a plan to spend another $5-10 billion fits with them.
There are perhaps arguments or proposals that would reconcile the two centre-right goals of school choice and lower taxes – perhaps by taking the necessary money out of other forms of family welfare or showing how the returns from the voucher proposal would deliver equivalent benefits. But to date these arguments haven’t been made.
Similarly, Sinclair’s view that universities should be forced to unbundle academic and non-academic services is in tension with views he otherwise holds. Just a couple of weeks ago he dismissed a proposal to regulate petrol retailing, saying:
Incredible – whatever happened to the notion that firms offer goods and services for sale and consumers decide what it is they want to buy and from whom they want to buy it?
That’s pretty much my reaction to Liberal plans to regulate what services universities can bundle.
I think all classical liberals are nay-sayers, but some of them say no when their friends, as well as their opponents, suggest big government initiatives.
Andrew Norton 
Andrew the difference between voluntary student unionism and compulsory student unionism is this:
Voluntary – “firms offer goods and services for sale and consumers decide what it is they want to buy and from whom they want to buy it”.
Compulsory – “firms offer goods and services for sale and firms (or even government) decide what it is consumers want to buy and from whom they want to buy it”.
On the first point, good government isn’t cheap government. Many people who argue for small government seem to think that they can get good government for cheap. That is a mistake. Small government means that we will get government doing less, but ideally doing some things better. If we believe that government has a role in primary and secondary education then we also need to believe that it should be properly funded and resourced. Now parents should play a great financial role in their own childrens’ education. We can all agree on that. But the price to pay for a voucher scheme is probably more government funding into the system. Of course, it is possible to increase government spending on education while shrinking overall government size. Small government means less spending overall and changing the mix of spending too.
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Sinc – So pre-2005 we had a voluntary arrangement – in most states, there was no government regulation of academic amenities. The problem was that government regulation created a less competitive overall higher education market than should have been the case. Nevertheless, there was considerable diversity in the services offered and the prices charged, as market theory would predict.
Since 2006, there has been mandatory unbundling. Labor now plans to replace this with mandated services with a price-controlled few. These reflect Coalition and Labor respectively views of how universities should be run, but neither are market approaches in my view.
I agree that good government isn’t necessarily cheap. But when we already have a private school system that delivers better services than the public system at much lower cost to taxpayers this is a good sign that more spending is not necessary.
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I agree with Andrew. I am astonished Sinc doesn’t see the contradiction here. Based on just the one comment above it appears that Sinc is in favour of forcing hotels, apartment buildings, supermarkets etc of unbundling stuff like gyms and free plastic bags from their offerings.
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Re: Sinclair’s comment, it is outrageous that KFC makes me buy all 11 of their herbs and spices that are sprinkled on their chicken, when I buy their chicken. I demand that the government legislate that KFC offers me the choice of any combination of their herbs and spices, including none at all.
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Jason/S-of-R – there is nothing stopping you from going to KFC and asking for a menu variation. If they cannot do so, or will not do so, there is nothing stopping you from approaching one of their competitors and buying chicken without the 11 secret herbs and spices. Similarly, websites exist to allow individuals to chose the amenities they wish to include when buying hotel packages. Some hotels even compete for the amenities within the hotel. For example, you may pay for some amenities and not others and have restricted access etc. So there is substantial variation in provision of bundled services.
The argument for plastic (or paper) bags in stores is to prevent shop-lifting. Rather than have individuals bring their own bags and potentially steal stuff, the store provides a bag at the check-out. (This is a lesson shops are relearning).
But I an see no reason why students should be forced to buy welfare and sporting services from a university when specialised institutions already exist to provide those services. Universities as best I can tell have no comparative advantage in providing these services that I can see, or even a cost advantage in providing a bundled service – afterall if it were cheaper to provide a bundled service universities would be lowering fees, not raising them.
I totally agree that government intervenstion creates distortions in the market, but I can think of no reason why that justifies conscription.
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The difference in view re higher ed seems to be about market definition. Andrew and co are saying that the relevant market here is tertiary institutions and students are free to choose whichever one they wish, based on the entire package of services they offer – including amenities. Sinc is saying that people choose an institution based on educational services and then consume amenities through a later separate decision, by which time the institution is (but should not be) a monopolist. I’m inclined to take the Andrew and co broader view of the relevant decision, but it does show how important it is to have effective competition at the institution level.
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As I understand it, it will be up to universities to decide whether or not to make membership of the student union compulsory. So if university A makes membership compulsory, and university B, offering a different product, does not, students can take that into account when deciding which university to attend.
It’s like choosing an airline. I can fly Qantas, where the meal comes with the flight, and I pay for it whether or not I eat it, or I can fly Virgin, where I have choice of paying separately for a meal. No one says that Qantas customers suffer a terrible infringement of their freedoms from this arrangement. (And I think we can all agree that airlines do not have a comparative advantage in the provision of food.)
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Another way of looking at this is to argue that VSU provided some shock therapy that cleared away most of the accumulated inefficiencies and misallocations that built up over decades of anti-competitive policies. Though still not what I want, by 2012 the system will be significantly more competitive than it was in say 2004. As student services are part of the overall marketing and now part of the general university budget process there is far more scrutiny than before. I predict lower overall non-academic costs and more unbundling than previously if price and product control is abolished.
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It’s a peculiar thing to think that the role of the university should be only as a provider of educational services, with everything else as an optional extra. While we don’t want to go down the American road where University Presidents get fired if the football team has an unsuccessful season, universities have traditionally, and with good reason, provided a host of different services and have seen this breadth of provision as an integral part of their offering.
Apart from educational, they have included sporting, cultural, job placement, health, food and accommodation. Some universities, like Oxbridge and many major US universities, bundle food and accommodation into the whole package. Some make the accommodation compulsory. Others will allow you want to eat and live off campus, but you don’t get a discount off your fees.
If all you are after is educational services, enrol in the Open University, get your lectures online, and that’s it. It’s your choice.
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Andrew – I’ve decided to charge you for my front room. I realise that you’ve never used my front room, have no plans to use it, and have never even seen it. It is a fine front room that adds to the ambiance of my house. I have no plans to modify the room for your needs or in any other improve the room so that you may gain any usage or enjoyment from it. Of course, if you fail to pay I shall have to cry poor and lobby the government to force you to pay. It’s only fair…
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Sinclair
All you’re saying is that you observe in the market for hotels that there is some unbundling and therefore you assume that all markets including the university market must have at least similar instances of unbundling and if they don’t, then they should be forced by regulation to conform to your theoretical model. You’re a Pigouvian socialist.
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It’s a poor argument Sinclair, for Andrew has no contractual or commercial relationship with you. But if you should rent your house to him next time you are away for a year on a sabbatical, then I reckon you won’t be impressed by him saying that he wants a discount on the rent because he doesn’t use the front room. Not to mention if he gets the government to legislate that you be forced to give him a discount because he shouldn’t have to pay for the front room if he doesn’t use it.
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Some hotels even compete for the amenities within the hotel. For example, you may pay for some amenities and not others and have restricted access etc. So there is substantial variation in provision of bundled services.
And if they didn’t by your logic you should lobby to force hotels to unbundle. Luckily the market is competiitve enough that they do. One thing you are picking up on is that the market for universities doesn’t seem to be very competitive – that may be one of the reasons this unbundling doesn’t occur. But if that is the case, mandating unbundling is a second best solution compared to removing or reducing entry barriers. Again your logic should lead to the conclusion that as long as any government-enforced entry restriction exists in the market, the government has carte blanche to enforce any other regulation on conduct of businesses in that market and call it ‘procompetitive’ and correcting for an earlier regulatory distortion. Which may be true or false but certainly isn’t the position you hold.
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The only reason that universities can bundle their services, and can deny students the option to ‘pick and choose’ what they pay for at university, is because they have some degree of market power. That is, they can act in a certain way, safe in the knowledge that it will have little effect on enrolments.
Sinclair’s solution to this is, as I read it, to legislate to prevent universities from bundling their services in this way.
Andrew’s solution is to leave universities free to make their own decisions, and allow competitive forces to operate, with the expectation that, just as with hotels, these forces will encourage universities to offer unbundled services.
Both arguments have recognised the problem, the question now is what to do about it. And this largely comes down to weighing up the consequences of each approach. In light of this, I have to support Andrew. I’d much rather act to raise the level of competition than to regulate institutions’ commercial behaviour.
In terms of Australian intellectual culture, Sinc’s approach sits firmly within the Melbourne tradition, one consequence of which is the ABC. And Andrew’s approach is very much in the tradition of Sydney, which gave us The Push.
I find this rather surprising. Melburnian Andrew’s tightly-controlled blog is run firmly within the Melburnian tradition, whereas Sinclair is a regular contributor to Sydney-based Jason’s free-wheeling Catallaxy blog.
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Ironic because Andrew is a native Melbournian whereas Sinclair is from Suff Effrrika
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Andrew, this is a little tangential but deals with the wider issue, why don’t you just pick the worst 10 or 20 policies and argue to cut them completely. It would be a fun exercise. Argue to cut some Howard sacred cows for a bit of news worthiness as well. I’d be amazed if you couldn’t find $10 Bn of savings in the Budget for 2011-12 after the recession ends. Find some big cuts and argue for it. Argue for smaller Govt by practical measure.
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How so? I’m not the person lobbying government to allow producers to charge non-consumers for goods and services. I have no problem with universities charging students a fee if and when those students use a service (I think we all agree on that). But I can’t see the justification for charging students for services they don’t want to use. Where we also agree is that in a deregulated market competition would constrain the amenity fee (so some uni’s would be able to charge and others not and so on – I suspect it would end up being subsumed into overall course fees). So what we really arguing about is how competition works in a highly distorted market.
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That’s why I support vouchers.
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Sinclair, do you mean vouchers for attendance at Australian universities, or vouchers for any university in the world?
I’m a fan of the international voucher. THAT’S what I would call introducing competition! 😉
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I’m not the person lobbying government to allow producers to charge non-consumers for goods and services. I have no problem with universities charging students a fee if and when those students use a service (I think we all agree on that). But I can’t see the justification for charging students for services they don’t want to use
I’m not the person lobbying to allow hotel proprietors to charge all hotel users that choose not to use the hotel gym rates that include cost recovery for gyms that they don’t use. I have no problem with hotels charging hotel users a gym fee if and when those hotel users choose to use the gym.
How pro-market of you, Sinclair!
*Note – the fact that as you point out, some hotels don’t supply gyms doesn’t in any way reduce the validity of that extrapolation of your argument regarding universities to hotels. You have impliicitly acknowledged that if the hotel market became as uncompetitive as unis, you’d give the ACCC or govt carte blanch to dictate their marketing and production practices.
University students by definition are no longer ‘non consumers’. They have contracted into paying for whatever the uni they have signed up with wants to charge them for.
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Jeremy – yes. That would be real competition, but I suspect no Australian government would agree to that.
Jason – what are you on about? I have no interest in how private organisations choose to charge fees. More importantly the government should have no interest. I am simply pointing out that many hotels already compete on bundled and unbundled offerings.
What?? That is just silly – I’d close the ACCC down tomorrow.
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Sinclair
Compare the two statements I have juxtaposed – your original one on unis and the one I have extrapolated to hotels based on the same principles.
If you can’t see the connection you’re either obtuse or you somehow regard unis as in a special category from hotels in which case you should just come out and say it rather than persist in hiding behind this idiotic statement that university students are not consumers of university services.
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Sorry Sinc… but you’ve been owned here.
If a seller wants to bundle their products together, and you don’t like it, then tough. You can either choose to voluntarily enter a contract with the seller, or you can choose to voluntarily not enter a contract with the seller.
You should NOT get the government to FORCE the seller to sell you exactly what you want.
This reminds me of the US court case against Microsoft.
I credit Andrew with waking me up on this issue. I had simply assumed that the government regulated for CSU, and hadn’t thought of the possibility that the universities might be choosing to bundle that way. I still prefer VSU… but now I think it is the universities that we should lobby to change their rules, instead of the lobbying the government to regulate in my favour.
Of course… we all agree that there should be more competition in the university sector. However, I don’t think (as it appears Sinclair thinks) that when competition is imperfect (as it is now) that justifies ever-more regulation. The second best argument only ever justifies big government.
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Jason – universities are not the same as hotels. There are government sanctioned barriers to entry and exit that surround unis that do not surround hotels. The contractual relationship between a customer and a hotel tend to be short-term and can be terminated by the customer easily and relatively cheaply. Relationships between student and university cannot be easily and cheaply terminated. They are long-term relationship characterised by all the contractual lock-in and hold-up problems that are associated with long-term contracting. So for example, a student is accepted into a university and charged a fee to study at the university. But in order to use the library and attend examinations they need a student card, and the student union issues the cards, so they have to join the student union to complete the contract.
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John – tell me what wrong with this argument.
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Sinc — there are barriers to enter the hotel market too. OHS to start with, but I’m sure there are others. Does that mean if the hotel market acts “badly” then the government should regulate them to act “better”?
I don’t see what the length of the contract has to do with anything. Are you saying that the free-market can’t have long-term contracts without them being subject to government micro-management?
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Sinc
Barriers to entry for hotels are not as free as they could be. No one can just set up a hotel nowadays without passing through any variety of planning and environmental regulations. So you seem to be saying that as long as there are any distortions in the market for any services created by govt regulation there is a case for intervention in that market to ensure it doesn’t exploit its government conferred market power.
I do agree that this may be so and regulation may be required on a case by case basis. But this hardly sits well with your preference for abolishing the ACCC.
You also seem to be saying this for for where extraordinary circumstances grant a hotel ‘significant market power’. Again a plausible rationale for regulating ‘natural monopolies’. Hardly consistent with your preference for abolishing the ACCC.
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Sinc — your link was about import restrictions. I don’t think the government should regulate about imports, or about whether universities choose to bundle their products.
Speaking of universities bundling their products, does that mean that Sinc is also against a university using their funds to maintain a tennis court? I mean… what if I don’t play tennis? That would mean I’m unfairly being forced to cross-subsidise those evil tennis players.
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OHS applies to universities too. Hotels would face fewer government barriers. How do I know? There are more hotels in Melbourne CBD than than the whole of Australia. I am ot suggesting the government micro-manage universities. Please find a quote for that allegation. I am suggesting that government coersion not be employed to force students to pay for services they don’t want. I am suggesting that government coersion not be employed to force students to join unions. I am the person here arguing against conscrition, not for it.
The differences in contractual relationships that occur in spot markets and relationship markets are well known and can be traced to Coase 1937, Alchian and Demsetz 1972 and Oliver Williamson’s works (1975, 1985).
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John – that argument is about people writing contracts to enforce higher prices on consumers – just like unis. Now all of a sudden you’re a free trader 🙂
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Bundling of goods is not “government coercion”, it is a preference by a player in the market.
In contrast, having the government determine what a seller is allowed to sell is a clear case of government coercion. You have called for this. And this is the example of you wanting government to micro-manage choices of the university.
I’m sure universities are more regulated than hotels, but that’s not the point. And I’m sure there are differences between short-term and long-term contracts… but I find it hard to believe that you’re using either of these differences to justify government coercion. I suggest that even when a business is regulated (like hotels or universities) and even when contracts are long-term (like employment or universities) the government should not be involved. In contrast, you are insisting, based on a list of excuses, that the government should force your preference onto the universities.
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I can’t get into the detailed arguments about the education business, but Andrew’s general comment:
is excellently put.
There’s a certain irony in him putting it here and now, however.
It was just a month ago that John Quiggin made a similar observation about the silence of some liberals:
I think Quiggin’s key sentence was the last one. The point wasn’t just that the Howard government happened to pursue a few liberal policies (along with plenty of neutral or non-liberal ones) and also “happened” to have a few scandals. The point was also what the classical liberals did and/or said about it.
Those liberals who chose to keep silent about problems in what the Howard govt was doing in order to keep in thick with their Liberal Party “friends” cannot now turn around and airily wash their hands of all responsibility for the results.
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I’ve always been a free trader. Or more to the point, I’ve always argued against government involvement. And that is exactly what I’m doing here.
You need to answer the question about universities building a tennis court.
Personally, I think you’re putting way too much faith in government. You are hoping that when they micro-manage university decisions they will micro-manage things as you like them. But unfortunately, when you give the government the power to impose your preferences, you are also giving them the power to impose other people’s preferences. We are all safer if you do not have the government controlling the decisions of sellers and buyers in the market.
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When I went to university at Deakin in Burwood, I didn’t use the communal areas much if at all especially in the last couple of years at university (other people would sit around, eat their lunch on the grass and read books/newspapers etc). So according to Sinclair’s logic regarding VSU/student amenities fees, they probably should introduce a toll to use these areas, so that I don’t have to subsidise them even though I don’t use them. And indeed, I drove to university, but some people didn’t drive and took public transport. This required me to use the footpath between the car park and the main university buildings, I suppose they should toll the use of the footpath because otherwise people who use public transport are also subsidising the footpath I walk on from the car park. Indeed, they should also toll the footpath from the tram stop to the main university buildings (the part which is within the university at least), so that I don’t pay for that when I don’t use it!
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Sinc
All enforcement of contracts involves ‘govt coercion’. It is dishonest and misleading of you to wheel out this emotive metaphysical phrase only when describing contracts you don’t agree with.
I agree that John has missed the point of your parallel imports example – the restrictions theoretically are enforced by the govt as a enforcement of contract.
However I know John’s mind well enough to answer for him and his distinction still makes sense – he would say that intellectual property rights are not genuine property rights anyway or that it is a category mistake to treat them as property rights when they are really a form of govt privilege to resolve externalities. By contrast a university may be a highly regulated commercial enterprise but it is still a commercial enterprise. Not enforcing a contract that originates out of a bogus property right like IP is not as bad as not enforcing a contract by something you would prefer to be provided by a less regulated private enterprise sector.
While I’m not as strong as John on the distinction between IP and property rights my argument would be along similar lines. You want a tertiary sector that is less regulated. Passing a regulation that restricts its ability to design contracts with its consumers ostensibly for the purpose of correcting for other regulations is myopic and whacked in the head. It creates the precedent that the more regulated a sector is … the more regulated it should be!
On the other hand not enforcing a copyright contract which is for all intents and purposes already becoming increasingly irrelevant because of online booksellers doesn’t have many negative implications.
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Yes, I’m sure he would. Picking and choosing those property right he doesn’t like. 🙂 On that happy note, commies I’m off to bed.
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I was going to go into IPR… but thought it was a distraction. The IPR in play with books is copyright, which would exist in contract common law if there was no legislation. I would prefer it that way as it would remove the temptation for further government involvement. But I accept Jason’s argument (from a previous discussion) that it’s not a big issue.
Patents are another story. They are simply government granted short-term monopoly rights. Whether they are good or not (and in most cases, I doubt it), they are clearly coercive.
Once again we see that when you roll Sincs over there is a pink underbelly…. 🙂
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Huh? Don’t you give me that “pick and choose property rights” schtick. I defend absolutely a person’s right to their physical property. Patents are a violation of a person’s physical property rights. A patent says I’m not allowed to build something in my property, made of only my inputs, and my labour, and the ideas in my brain… because the government has granted a monopoly to another person.
(And don’t say they “own” the idea in my head. It’s in my head. To say that I don’t own the ideas in my head is to say that I don’t own my thoughts. And surely even Sinclair doesn’t believe the government should be nationalising people’s thoughts!)
Putting aside whether people agree with me or not, my position is entirely consistent and is based on the idea that the only way to transfer property is voluntarily.
And further… this side-track is irrelevant. The point is whether a government should use coercion to force a seller to only sell products in a way that make Sinclair happy. Or should a seller (even a seller in a regulated business) be allowed to sell what they want.
In short — Sincs needs to answer the tennis court question. A failure to answer that question is an admission of confusion.
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Oh sorry John, didn’t realise I’d convinced you of the copyright as contract idea. Anyway regardless as I said, there is a very big and obvious distinction between not accepting govt enforcement of university contracts and not accepting govt enforcement of parallel imports contracts:
1) In the one case you are justifying one regulation to ‘correct’ for other regulations
2) in the other you are not saying one transaction-cost saving measure of enforcing what could otherwise be enforced by common law action won’t be done because the costs exceed the benefits. Nothing is stopping the publisher from trying to enforce it in the courts. In any case more substantial exceptions have already been created (e.g. Amazon).
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Hang onto that thought – I’ll raise it again when the LDP releases its party platform at the next election 🙂
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The issue about tennis courts would be why the university is building them in the first place. If the idea is to attract better students or staff with better amenities then that is a straight-forward business decision. More likely the university would be building tennis courts because senior management have too much money and no incentives to re-invest that money wisely in the core business of the institution. This type of behaviour is well-explained by Michael Jensen (1986, 1989). So while a case for tennis courts can be made, and may well be correct, I would take the view that a university spending money on tennis courts (or corporate boxes at the football) should be regarded as any other organisation that invests away from its core business and so loses corporate focus. This is especially problematic for organisations where there is no contested market for control.
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“I’d be amazed if you couldn’t find $10 Bn of savings in the Budget for 2011-12 after the recession ends. Find some big cuts and argue for it. Argue for smaller Govt by practical measure.”
Corin – I can save $10 billion from one program! My old target FTB burns about $20 billion a year. Chopping it in half should still leave plenty for the genuinely needy cases.
“Those liberals who chose to keep silent about problems in what the Howard govt was doing in order to keep in thick with their Liberal Party “friends” cannot now turn around and airily wash their hands of all responsibility for the results.”
Alan – I was a continuous critic of the Howard government on higher ed policy since 2000 and a regular critic of tax and spend policies from at least from 2004 (and perhaps earlier, but I remember writing about it from 2004). So I am not drawing on after-the-fact wisdom.
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Plan to increase marginal tax by 8.5%
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Andrew – go and campaign for it then. Write a whole heap of op eds and make a case. What would make it a potent case is to propose some other benefit like tax reform as a result of cutting it in half. It would be a great 1000 word op ed for the Fin or Oz. Someone else will do it if you don’t – perhaps me … that will get you motivated hey …
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Corin – So many bad government policies, so little time! And I try to avoid general commentary in the media, sticking to things on which I have a reasonable claim to expertise/carefully thought-out views.
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Andrew, perhaps but one can always have sound views even if some details need others expertise to complete them. Sounds like your selling yourself short. My guess is if you spent some research time on almost any topic you’d be an expert soon enough. Sounds like your afraid of peer opinion too much when change happens outside of peer controlled environments.
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Corin – The problem is time. I always have far more ideas for papers and articles than I have time to write them. I have about 40 paid days a year for discretionary research and writing; even adding in quite a few weekends I can only do 3-4 research-based papers, articles and chapters. Two or three of them will be higher education, my area of highest comparative advantage. I have a paper coming out on Friday on political expenditure laws, which I picked because I was personally pissed off about them (I have no desire to spend in my time filling in ridiculous AEC forms), and because this is a major attack on NGOs that has received almost no coverage. Vacant niches always appeal to me.
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Sounds good, but also pick something that will sell a bit of news copy from time to time. Like cutting FTB in half. People want to know the cost and what you could do with it … its’ topical and has teeth. Allows for an angle that is post-Howard politics. Currently you’re kind (i.e. liberals) are facing extinction from public life. You certainly have no place in Labor politics and the Liberals seem just as hostile to small Govt. Really it is time for a polemic but one that has real proposals as well. May be the CIS should do a book that makes a case based on values as well as just data … currently I read their stuff and it is missing a narrative that connects to experience of the public even though they are good papers. On that score they are not dynamic enough to make a case for change.
I’m thinking that magazine articles are an ideal format for generating a message of change. Rudd is smart enough to have understood this even though his pieces are simply wrong on many factual issues.
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Corin – It’s a funny kind of extinction – on media mentions our numbers keep going up.
I tend to keep my ‘values’ implicit in public commentary, because I realise many of them are not necessarily widely shared. But the paper on Friday may be an exception. While the document has plenty of technical information about the detail of electoral law for the experts I hope will read it, I think I can distil it down to values-based ideas about democracy and fair treatment. The punters don’t read issue papers or books, but the basic ideas for this one can be explained in op-eds, articles, interviews etc
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Rudd’s stuff is virtually devoid of intrinsic intellectual interest; it’s only important because he is powerful.
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