This NYT story on the reimportation of cheap college textbooks from India misses the entire, delicious point: Americans line up as huge fans of globalization when the money saved goes to them rather than their employers (thanks, WGIIA).

Over the last few years, many American students… have been buying American textbooks printed in India, as word has spread of the larger savings available… The textbooks are printed legally in India under copyright arrangements worked out over the last decade by American and British publishers. Americans are huge fans of globalization — when they’re making the moneyUsing tax breaks and cheap labor, Indian companies publish the books in black-and-white, low-quality paperback editions, and sell them for as little as 10 percent of the cost of the same book in the United States. But under the licensing agreement, the books may be sold only on the Indian subcontinent and in surrounding countries…

There are no penalties for students who import books for their own use, under a 1998 Supreme Court decision that ruled that manufacturers who sell goods more cheaply overseas than in the United States have no protection against having their products sold back to the American market. [Link]

The other interesting point here is the same problem intellectual property publishers have been facing for decades: differential pricing is not sustainable in an efficient market. You can’t sell Microsoft Windows for 10% the cost in India because Americans will import the lower-price version. And you can’t sell it at full cost and expect decent sales in a developing country, only the rich will buy. All you can do is segment the market with a lower-featured edition.

And that’s exactly what these textbook publishers have done. The problem is, students are satisfied with the lower-quality editions because hardly anyone buys textbooks for pleasure, especially not at $150 a pop.

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Three million people marched in France today against a labor flexibility bill, possibly the largest protests in the history of modern France. It’s the kind of reaction you’d expect in Bengal:

The marches were part of a nationwide day of action against the Villepin legislation, which was intended to encourage hiring by making it easy for companies to fire workers under age 26 during their first two years on the job. [Link]

“It is a collective failure of the French system,” said Louis Chauvel, a sociologist who studies generational change. “You earn more doing nothing in retirement at the age of 60 to 65 than working full-time at the age of 35…”

… A sweeping survey of people in 22 countries released in January found that France was alone in disagreeing with the premise that that the best economic model is “the free enterprise system and free market economy.” [Link]

According to the poll cited above, more Indians believe in a free market economy than even the Brits, Germans or French. China tops the poll, and France sits at the bottom.

Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments: “In one sense we are indeed facing what has been called ‘the end of history,’ in that there is now an extraordinary level of consensus about the best economic system.” [Link]

My theory is that rapid development gives people faith in the redemptive power of the invisible hand. The poll was conducted in India’s major cities, so urbanites support liberalization. But the poll says nothing about the voter-heavy heartland.

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