The Cowen Challenge

Tyler Cowen asks: "Here is my question for the left-wing bloggers: How good would The Wire be, if it had to appeal to 300 million plus viewers? While it is obvious that politics is a form of mass culture, this point is not made with sufficient frequency for my taste."

Obviously, under those circumstances The Wire would suck, just as the rhetoric engaged in by presidential campaign is incredibly dumb if evaluated as serious analysis of public policy or the structure of American political institutions. That said, the libertarianish line of reasoning that goes "politics is tawdry and often corrupt and therefore you liberals should go home and just let things become even more dominated by the corrupt interests of the wealthy and large business enterprises" doesn't make sense to me.

Comments

There's been a lot of this plutocracy-masquerading-as-libertarianism lately

Posted by Tiny Tim | March 11, 2008 9:28 AM

not all mass-market cop shows suck. once upon a time NYPD Blue was quite good. it just hung around too long.

i was once in a discussion with someone who passionately defended Cop Rock.

Posted by cleek | March 11, 2008 9:28 AM

the libertarianish line of reasoning that goes "politics is tawdry and often corrupt and therefore you liberals should go home and just let things become even more dominated by the corrupt interests of the wealthy and large business enterprises"

Is that someone's reasoning? Does that even count as reasoning? I'm failing to see what the conclusion has to do with the premise.

Posted by Tom | March 11, 2008 9:29 AM

I kind of don't get Cowen's point. To me it sounds like "Let them eat cake," with the added twist of denying liberals the right to complain about the situation because liberals eat lobster mignon.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | March 11, 2008 9:34 AM

M*A*S*H is pretty good for appealing to a lot of viewers (especially the last episode holding the record for highest viewership ever), and the show managed to keep on the air for over a decade a liberal anti-war "the U.S. Army is stupid" message.

What was the point again?

Posted by BJ | March 11, 2008 9:35 AM

the libertarianish line of reasoning that goes "politics is tawdry and often corrupt and therefore you liberals should go home and just let things become even more dominated by the corrupt interests of the wealthy and large business enterprises"

Actually, I think most libertarians would also object to those aspects of government that work in favor of the wealthy and large business enterprises. As a libertarian, I don't like corporate welfare either. Let's face it, it is the state's monopoly on coercive force that is used by the wealthy and large business enterprises to the end of their unfair enrichment.

Posted by sewells1951 | March 11, 2008 9:38 AM

i was once in a discussion with someone who passionately defended Cop Rock.

Well, The Singing Detective was great, but that's Dennis Potter and off the table as "greatest TV ever" since it was aired Somewhere Else.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 11, 2008 9:41 AM

The Mona Lisa, if it had to appeal to 300 million contemporary Americans, would have a lot more nipple and a shaved pooner.

Posted by riffle | March 11, 2008 9:44 AM

Not sure about 'lobster mignon', but I eat kobe lobsters (lobsters fed only Kobe beef). [stolen from popular tv show]

I too do not understand the libertarian impulse to throw up ones hands and whine condescendingly.

Posted by theCoach | March 11, 2008 9:54 AM

Actually, I think most libertarians would also object to those aspects of government that work in favor of the wealthy and large business enterprises.

Fair enough, but liberals aren't going to buy "abolish government and hand control of all resources over to the wealthy and large business enterprises" as a solution to this problem.

Posted by Consumatopia | March 11, 2008 9:58 AM

I don't know how old Tyler Cowen is, but I've noticed this weird marketing-driven mindset that seems prevalent in recent years among with-it under-30-year-olds: that an work or idea's inherent merit is somehow tied to its occupying some kind of "sweet spot" of accessibility between the two undesirable extremes of "artsy-fartsiness" and "pandering to the lowest common denominator."

When applied to the relatively harmless fields of art or music criticism, this approach comes across as merely inane. When applied to politics, though, it really makes its proponents look like Karl Rove--simultaneously Machiavellian and poltroonish.

Posted by James Gary | March 11, 2008 10:00 AM

I don't understand TC's point.

I used to read MR daily but the smugness and "look what I'm pondering" posts drove me away.

Posted by eriks | March 11, 2008 10:06 AM

"Obviously, under those circumstances The Wire would suck"

There's nothing obvious about that. There's been plenty of television shows and movies that have managed to both aim at a larger, broader audience than THE WIRE and still be pretty damn good.

I really have grown to hate the niche approach to TV, where people praise efforts at storytelling designed to only appeal to tiny sections of the audience. I don't see how having an audience of 100 thousand that really, really, really love a show is in any way better than having an audience of 10 million that like it.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | March 11, 2008 10:11 AM

i was once in a discussion with someone who passionately defended Cop Rock.

Did they sing its praises?

Posted by Pesto | March 11, 2008 10:11 AM

Was The Wire a commercial success, such that we can expect HBO and others to aim future content at its fans? If not, this doesn't seem like a very good example--the market only satisfied my demand by mistake, which suppliers will seek to avoid in the future. It's a fluke.

There's a lot of stuff on NPR and other publicly-funded media that doesn't appeal to 300 million people either, so I can't see Cowen's point at all.

Posted by Consumatopia | March 11, 2008 10:12 AM

Tyler Cowen is a first-rate philistine number one.

Number two I'd be more willing to take elite disdain of mass politics more seriously if the things specifically packaged for, and happily consumed by, our country's elite weren't as equally perposterous--e.g. see the post below.

Posted by Mark | March 11, 2008 10:16 AM

On occasion I've prepared some pretty delicious meals, but I really don't think I am prepared to scale this up to feed 300 million people. Therefore my entire conception of meal preparation must be in error.

Posted by El Cid | March 11, 2008 10:17 AM

Enough with The Wire already! Put it to bed. Please.

Posted by grrrrr | March 11, 2008 10:25 AM

I don't think you get 300M or 110M households but a different version of The Wire could pick up 4-5 gross rating points. How? Add some of the interactive elements of American Idol and Survivor. "Viewers! Vote now for the next street punk to get bumped". I might also relocate the program to Seattle and give it a meth orientation. That'd allow me to get both white and Latino demographics interested. And I'd let the audience know that there will be a happy ending. Duh.

Posted by Drew Robertson | March 11, 2008 10:29 AM

I don't see how having an audience of 100 thousand that really, really, really love a show is in any way better than having an audience of 10 million that like it.

Well, if you have 100 such shows with non-overlapping audiences, then all 10 million people get one show they really, really love, which is better than the alternative where everyone gets 100 shows they kinda like.

Posted by Matt Weiner | March 11, 2008 10:44 AM

I took from Tyler's post some remorse that smart people like Goolsbee and Samantha Powers can't make it in presidential politics because message consistency is more important than intellect. He didn't seem to be saying that we should give up on government. He was making a point about the dynamics of campaigning for president.

Posted by mike | March 11, 2008 10:47 AM

Weiner!

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | March 11, 2008 10:47 AM

Fair enough, but liberals aren't going to buy "abolish government and hand control of all resources over to the wealthy and large business enterprises" as a solution to this problem.

It's not handing control over to "the wealthy and large business enterprises"; it's handing control over to those who can afford a sufficiently large private security force to enforce their contractual rights. Rich and poor alike will be permitted to enter into protection contracts based on their ability to pay, and niche players will take advantage of the free market to pool large numbers of poor people into mutual defense associations that can counterbalance, e.g., Blackwater.

Posted by mds | March 11, 2008 10:52 AM

Of course Libertarians don't approve of big corporations. Matt's point is that Libertarians by denying themselves Government regulation as a means of keeping corporations in check tend to be impotent in dealing with their excesses.

That is the Liberal argument, but I have always wanted to hear a Libertarian explain their answer to it.

Posted by Chris Dornan | March 11, 2008 11:09 AM

"therefore you liberals should go home and just let things become even more dominated by the corrupt interests of the wealthy and large business enterprises"

C'mon, Matt, that's a distortion. The libertarian argument isn't to leave certain government powers to the bad guys, but to try to deny them to everyone. That itself requires a certain form of political activism, the sort that liberals engage in with respect to free speech and religion.

Posted by Matthew Tievsky | March 11, 2008 11:15 AM

A full-on comparison of "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "The Wire" is as direct a comparison between a series on American network television and a series on American cable television as you can get.

It *was* good.

Posted by Aaron | March 11, 2008 11:33 AM

Without government protection, what exactly can a corporation due to me? I'm not trying to be snide, I really am not sure what you guys are getting at.

Posted by josh | March 11, 2008 11:43 AM

Without government protection, what exactly can a corporation due to me? I'm not trying to be snide, I really am not sure what you guys are getting at.

Posted by josh | March 11, 2008 11:43 AM

"It's not handing control over to "the wealthy and large business enterprises"; it's handing control over to those who can afford a sufficiently large private security force to enforce their contractual rights. Rich and poor alike will be permitted to enter into protection contracts based on their ability to pay, and niche players will take advantage of the free market to pool large numbers of poor people into mutual defense associations that can counterbalance, e.g., Blackwater."

----------------------------

Isn't that more or less equivalent to feudal Europe? In other words, legal rights retaining to those with the most military force available, all other citizens buying protection from them, and small groups forming self-defense communities.

That didn't work out so great last time.

Posted by StevenAttewell | March 11, 2008 11:53 AM

It's pretty simple really. Libertarians are so focused on 'markets' that they have completely missed the fact that there is this other thing called 'power'. Read one of Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novels. That is a realistic representation of what is going on inside many libertarians' heads It's not as realistic for Cowen, but he similarly underestimates the significance of power. To a libertarian, the government has the option of adopting a 'neutral' stance. Not only is this silly in and of itself, but, of course, due to the concept of power, we know that the wealthy will play with the rules of the game to know that this stance will not be neutral. So liberals have to work against these forces. None of this even applies to true believer libertarians, though. They believe taxation, etc are wrong on principle. That's a whole different group that explicitly does not include Tyler Cowen and the argument with them is completely different.

Posted by mpowell | March 11, 2008 11:53 AM

Why do people keep reading Cowen? It's obvious he's more animated by being mean than sharing insights from economics. I was too when I was a sophomore economics major! The guy needs to grow up. McArdle is even worse.

Posted by chris | March 11, 2008 11:55 AM

mpowell: "To a libertarian, the government has the option of adopting a 'neutral' stance. Not only is this silly in and of itself, but, of course, due to the concept of power, we know that the wealthy will play with the rules of the game to know that this stance will not be neutral."

Do you think government neutrality is an impossibility with respect to religion and/or free speech?

Posted by Matt Tievsky | March 11, 2008 11:59 AM

Do you think government neutrality is an impossibility with respect to religion and/or free speech?

It is possible to get far closer to neutrality here than with business, that is certainly true. But even here, you have to be careful.

What about religious/cultural practices like female genital mutilation? I think the government is obliged to adopt positions regarding their willingness to accomodate various religious views and also how far religious practices may encroach on other individual liberties, particularly those of minors.

Posted by mpowell | March 11, 2008 12:11 PM

Tyler Cowen asks: "Here is my question for the left-wing bloggers: How good would The Wire be, if it had to appeal to 300 million plus viewers? While it is obvious that politics is a form of mass culture, this point is not made with sufficient frequency for my taste."

This is pretty stupid. (Well, to be fair, commenter on left-wing blog calls a libertarian stupid: what a surprise.) Even if we're willing to make analogies between government and commercial media, why would someone interested in meaningful thought compare the federal government to one single TV show? Are there any similarities at all there? A network might be arguable, but the only really relevant comparison I can think of is a cable provider or a movie theater. And, how about that, those usually do offer a wide variety of programming for different goals, of different types, etc. What a surprise.

Posted by Cyrus | March 11, 2008 12:17 PM

You don't have to convince 300 million people in order to get elected. First, only about 200 million are eligible to vote. Second, only about 120 million (tops) will actually vote. Third, about 40% of them will never vote for you. Fourth, about 40% will vote for you, no matter what. That leaves a bit more than half of 12 million you have to win over. How many people watch The Wire?

Posted by Jose Padilla | March 11, 2008 12:22 PM

It's a bit odd, isn't it? Boiled down, Tyler's argument seems to favor local control - a smaller polity will get better responsiveness from its government. This may even be true.

But if there was ever a show that did not favor local control...

Posted by heedless | March 11, 2008 2:43 PM

That of course being a complete parody of the libertarian position. Spoken with no discernable note of irony it provides a good meter of Yggy's understanding of those that disagree with him. Namely, bupkis.

Posted by Noah Yetter | March 11, 2008 4:44 PM

Noah has it right. Matt's ignorance of what is actually "libertarianism" (big-L or small-L) is abysmal - much like his understanding of military affairs, economics, technology, or just about everything outside of politics and formal philosophy.

Matt really is the George W. Bush of pundits: clueless, ignorant and arrogant.

Fortunately, he has no power but this stupid blog.

"Matt's point is that Libertarians by denying themselves Government regulation as a means of keeping corporations in check tend to be impotent in dealing with their excesses.

That is the Liberal argument, but I have always wanted to hear a Libertarian explain their answer to it."

The anarchist answer is very simple: get rid of the state. Once that's done, it's damn hard to put together enough people to oppress everybody - mostly because all humans hate all other humans and thus don't cooperate well without some organization directing the show.

Corporations are creatures of the state. No state - no corporations. You can have companies, sure. But no company can have a monopoly because monopolies don't work when there is no state or legal coercion behind them - and natural monopolies are rare and fragile.

Once in a while, though, you can get one tribe to attack another tribe, or a minority of their tribe. This is basically why I don't bother with anarchism any more: it's simply impossible to get fear-driven chimpanzees to behave rationally in all circumstances. There is no way you will ever have a rational, organized society starting with humans.

No way, Jose.

Fortunately, that doesn't matter. Once you have Transhumans, either the humans get their asses fried or the Transhumans go their own way and ignore the chimps, or we make you all Transhumans whether you like it or not.

Personally, I'm up for option one - but that's just me, and just my left-over human negativity surfacing.

In reality, all three options will occur: some chimps will get fried, some will be ignored, some will be transmogrified.

If you're under forty, you'll live to see it. Better have your position staked out early.

That means you, Matt.

Have a nice day.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 12, 2008 5:49 AM