It helps that my teachers spend the first few minutes of every class showing Youtube clips like this one that they’ve received from their students or fellow professors. (It also really helps that BYU finally un-blocked traffic to the Youtube site from their on campus servers…) But, Youtube entertainment aside, this semester has been particularly enjoyable – I’m finally getting past the core classes and into the elective ones where we basically read an article or a paper and discuss it in class.
Today, in lieu of a Youtube clip, my professor started off my Healthcare Economics class by sharing the way he now introduces Monopolies in his Econ 110 class (Introductory Economics for you non-BYU-ites). I will attempt to recreate that all for you here.
He starts by saying that one example of a monopoly is the BYU Bookstore. For starters, it’s a great tie because it is so close to home and pocketbook for anybody in his student audience. Furthermore, BYU, unlike other bookstores at other local universities, has a return policy that is linked to the campus’ honor code. They will only accept returns for your books if you have dropped the class the books are for, and not if you have found them cheaper from somewhere else. Easily skirted, if you just bend the truth a bit, but every student signs away their right to lie when they enroll for classes at BYU.
In January of this year, a girl who goes to BYU wrote an excellent article about this conundrum, and cited my professor… you can read the full text here if you like. In the article, she quoted the following from my professor regarding the bookstore’s policy:
"The policy acts as a tax on honesty. If a student is honest and purchases a replacement product elsewhere, no refund is available. However, if the student fudges the truth a bit, the student can get a refund. Honesty is punished.… All of which is absolutely true.
"Most stores compete for consumers not just by the prices they charge, but by the service they give, with a refund policy being an important aspect of service. A more typical policy is to match a competitor's price, or to offer a money-back guarantee if a consumer finds a similar product for a cheaper price. But the Bookstore has a lot of market power given their location; they can act like a monopoly so perhaps they don't need to compete as hard as the typical retailer."
The part that gets funny is the way that the managers of the bookstore responded to the truth. (Admittedly, everything else I’ve got to say is opinion or anecdotal… but as they say in Russian, “In every joke, there is a slice of truth”, I choose to believe there are more than a few slices of truth in this…)
Reaction #1: Following the campus newspaper’s publication of the story I linked to above, the bookstore retaliated by pulling all of their advertising from the Daily Universe’s pages for more than a month.
Reaction #2: The managers of the campus bookstore got in touch with my Econ professor, on the pretense that they wanted to make sure that they were “on the same page”. These geniuses showed up in his office armed with a statistical comparison they had compiled, ready to lay down the law. They set out to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was cheaper for students to buy any of the textbook materials used in the Economics Department from the bookstore than it was to buy them online. They did a great job – using the used book prices at the bookstore against new prices from online retailers like Amazon.com. My teacher pointed out the apples-to-oranges comparison for them, and they quickly changed tack.
Reaction #3: “But the bookstore can’t be a monopoly, because we employ people who are bishops and stake presidents (LDS ecclesiastical leaders)…” I’m not quite sure which angle to attack this one from because it is so vulnerable. Another one of my Econ professors has created what he calls the “Ad Hominem Index”. It is used to judge the logical and rational strength of one’s argument based on the number of personal attacks in it. In a nutshell, it is an inverse relationship… if all you’ve got is “You’re wrong because you suck,” your argument isn’t going to go very well. I think what the bookstore employees had to say is pretty much the opposite of that style of arguing, but no stronger. They’re saying, “we can’t be an evil monopoly, because we’re good people!” Obviously, my professor didn’t have much trouble seeing through their crap, and the managers left, angry and defeated.
But they weren’t done yet.
Reaction #4: To get back at my professor, the bookstore pulled all of the materials he had ordered for his classes from their shelves, replacing them instead with a sign that said “See Professor”.
Today my professor structures his courses so that students don’t have to buy books from the bookstore. In particular, he and the other professors who teach Econ 110 have set the course up so that it can be taken without purchasing anything from the bookstore. All of the reading and coursework can be found on www.aplia.com, for a small fee that goes into Aplia’s pocket. Considering the fact that Econ 110 is a part of the general education core classes for BYU students, and not just Economics majors, the turnover is immense. Easily 400-500 students take Econ 110 every semester, and the bookstore doesn’t get a dime. If the students do want to buy a physical copy of the book, the professors all encourage them to buy it online through Aplia, who sells it for a price less than 50% of what the bookstore charges (even for a used copy.)
I picked Economics because I wanted to be something other than the average “Business-Finance” undergraduate. I stuck with Economics because I thought it was a really effective way of explaining the things that people do and why they do them. I LOVE Economics because in moments like these, it gives you the skill set to intelligently present an impersonal, yet irrefutable argument.
Amazing how a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.
Sounds like you'd love my Critical thinking and Econ classes here at Kelley.
ReplyDeleteBob McRae
Great story. I switched to econ in my sophomore year for the same reasons and have never regretted it. I wanted more than the "business-finance" degree and I figured a major that teaches the same skill set more in depth AND adds additional analytical skills was the way to go.
ReplyDeleteI loved my econ classes and my wife always seems to roll her eyes a little bit when I take an analytical approach to an everyday situation based on the principles I learned in Economics.
These skills are additionally becoming very helpful now that I am in MBA school at Duke University. So who was the professor?
Brock Rasmussen
Hey! you can't write this stuff about the Lords anointed bookstore! Oh My Heck! you are so going to spirit prison.
ReplyDeleteWhy would they have a no return policy when finding a book cheaper somewhere else if they really believed that their prices are cheaper than anywhere else? The professor probably could have slammed them there as well.
ReplyDeleteDo you drink all of the varieties of Kool-aid your profs serve you?
ReplyDeleteThat's funny! And just goes to underscore what Lord Acton wrote, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Marshall, my old Math professor, always tries to get his texts from Dover because they are so much cheaper.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. The fact that the manager tried to argue it out with the econ prof using his "statistics" is priceless. Talk about showing up to a battle of wits unarmed..... rofl
ReplyDeleteWow, well put; what smug truth and a brilliant professor!! Glad to hear you like Economics and are finding it quite useful. I am in an econ-finance class currently and though it is not one of my strong points, I love and concur with your statement that it "gives you the skill set to intelligently present an impersonal, yet irrefutable argument!!"
ReplyDelete