things kevin hates

Those of y’all who know me know that I’m about as much a fan of capitalism as anyone. Big businesses, greed, profits, screwing the little guy—I’m all for it. But there’s one instance in which greedy corporations have managed to screw over poor consumers in ways that should be simply untenable. What am I talking about? College textbooks.

I’m actually even more bothered by the problem now that I’m a college instructor than I was as a student. I had TOPS stipends or grad school assistantships to pay for my textbooks; I got to keep the remainder, so I had an incentive to buy books for as little as possible, but the sting of spending $250 or more for a semester’s worth of books is greatly lessened when you’re getting help to pay for them. But as an instructor, I don’t want to force overpriced textbooks upon students who may or may not be able to easily afford the books.

Right now I’m teaching a mythology class. I had been a TA for a class a few years back and we used Morford and Lenardon’s Classical Mythology (8th edition). It was a good book, I was familiar with it, and it was my first time teaching a mythology class, so I went with it. Sure, I gritted my teeth a little bit at the fact that my students would have to pay $70 or so for it, but c’est la vie. I used it, it worked well, and I’d certainly recommend it if the cost isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, the cost is a problem. I’m teaching the same mythology class during the summer, and I was debating whether or not to use the textbook. I go to look it up on amazon and see that there’s now a ninth edition, which came out in February 2010. The eighth edition came out in 2007. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell that enough changed in the study of a field that goes back two thousand years to necessitate a new edition just three years after the preceding one. The sole reason is money.

So why are textbooks so damn expensive? Wikipedia’s page on textbooks is pretty helpful, and it includes a link to a PDF copy of a report written by James V. Koch, an economics professor and former college president. In that report he notes the major problem: the people who decide what books must be bought (i.e., faculty) are not the people who pay for the books (students). Students are more or less forced into buying whatever book the teacher requires; the teacher has no direct incentive to see that textbooks are affordable. Anyone who knows anything at all about economics can see that this will lead to trouble. Since students don’t have a choice and professors don’t have an incentive, the textbook companies hold the upper hand. They can churn out a slightly modified copy of a perfectly good book and quit publishing the old one. Sure, there will still be used copies of the old versions, but faculty will gravitate toward the shiny new version of the textbook. The book authors, publishers, and retailers make money, and the students are left footing the bill. (Note: I didn’t even get into the problem of professor/authors who stand to profit when students buy their textbooks. I had one professor who did that, but at least he was selling a $13 book directly to us. And given that the author is one of the most prominent libertarian economists, I don’t think he’d have stopped us from buying a used copy. And there have only been two editions of the book: one in 1991, the other in 2008. And as far as I know, they’re pretty much identical.)

Now, short of a government takeover there’s not much that can be done to the publishers themselves—it’s a free country, after all. And the students are largely powerless in the matter—sure, they can shop around, buy used textbooks, take different courses, whatever—but if they need a certain class and the professor requires a certain textbook, there’s not much they can do. The power to change things rests with the universities and with instructors; and let’s face it, universities are bureaucratic nightmares that have a tough time getting anything done. So it’s really up to the teachers. True, in some cases there may be a conflict of interest when professors write textbooks, but the vast majority of professors don’t. They need to stand up and say that they won’t stand for this practice and force ridiculously overpriced textbooks on their students. I for one won’t use the Morford and Lenardon textbook this summer, and it’s highly unlikely I’d use it ever again (unless my students will be able to acquire reasonably priced books). I’m planning on referring my students to a bunch of different online sources. It’s going to make my life more difficult—I already have a pretty good idea of how to teach from the M&L textbook—but it’s worth it to save my students money and get the satisfaction of sticking it to “the man.”*

So does anyone defend the system as it stands now? Well, the textbook companies, of course, and the moronic author-professors who work for them. Consider this essay from Henry Roediger, a professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. Who does he blame? Not the publishing companies—he works for them, after all—but used book retailers! These retailers include the huge companies like Barnes and Noble who run so many of the college bookstores today. In other words, big publishing conglomerates=good, big retailing conglomerates=bad. He points out the astronomical profits made by resellers, and whines that poor, starving tenured profs like him are getting screwed when someone resells a used copy of a book that was already legally purchased.**

Furthermore, he writes that “unless and until laws are changed to prevent the organized sale of used books, you can expect textbook prices to keep increasing.” Stop the resale of completely legal goods? How ridiculous is that? Whether your political leanings are left, right, or middle, no sane person could argue for banning the resale of used books except out of greed and self-interest. Such a restriction would drastically contravene existing US doctrine on copyright law (see the Wikipedia article on first-sale doctrine for more details). And would we start banning the secondhand sale of any good whatsoever? Send the police to garage sales and thrift stores? I imagine Roediger and others of his ilk might argue that the intellectual property content in a book makes it different than most other types of goods, but just about everything derives from intellectual property of some kind, either a copyright or patent. Suppose you buy a dress at a garage sale. The dress has a fancy pattern which was clearly the work of an artist or clothing designer who labored to come up with such a garment. The designer’s intellectual property is a major reason you buy that dress rather than another, just as an author’s intellectual property is a reason you buy one book rather than another, but was the designer screwed over? No, of course not. Nor is the book author screwed over. Sure, the author would like to make as much money as possible. But why should the textbook author, uniquely of all merchants, be entitled to see that every individual who uses his item pay him separately? Sure, there is a unique market for textbooks, in that they are needed only for short periods of time, and many people don’t wish to keep them, but would rather resell them.*** But that’s the publishing companies’ problem, not mine. Make things that people actually want to keep, and maybe there wouldn’t be so many used copies out there.

Roediger outlines the schemes that the publishing companies undertake: publishing new books frequently, raising prices, bundling CDs and other crap with the textbook, etc. I can’t really blame the publishers; they’re out to make money, after all. And yes, it does cost money to develop textbooks, and yes, they aren’t making money on used textbooks. But I can blame the disingenuous, nonsensical arguments of the flacks who work for them. The simple fact is that new editions of textbooks simply aren’t needed at the swift rate at which they are produced. And if universities aren’t going to stand up to the publishers and distributors, it’s up to the faculty members to call for a stop to this practice, by encouraging the use of cheaper books, used books, older editions, textbook rentals, and the like.

* Yes, I’m so much of a cheapskate that I enjoy being a cheapskate for other people’s benefit.

** Okay, he doesn’t say that he’s poor and starving. But if you don’t like the money, quit writing textbooks!

*** Not me. I have shelf after shelf of old textbooks, some of which I use more than others. Even my parents have shelves of old textbooks lining the living room. But we’re hoarders, if only to a slight degree.