Category: Economics

Experienced internet users are likely to be familiar with Wikipedia. It’s famous for being “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” (tag) It was made even more famous when Nature declares Wikipedia “comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries.” That’s a victory for the Wikipedian model. Now, there’s a proposal to tweak the model.

A new proposal, called the paid editor job board, started by Cookiecaper earlier this week has generated a firestorm of controversy. The proposal, originally named Wikipedia:Now Hiring, operates on a similar principle to Wikipedia:Bounty Board. However, unlike the Bounty Board, the paid editor job board would pay individual editors for specific Wikipedia contributions, instead of giving a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Controversial? You bet.

I’ve been on English Wikipedia for more than two years now, at least on record. I contribute in return for self-satisfaction and there are more than a million of users like me at Wikipedia. The editors receive no monetary reward whatsoever. Some called it altruism. Whatever it is, our rewards most of the times are recognition by other editors.

Since the current setting is working marvelously so far, it’s not surprising at all to observe a sizable group of people to express strong displeasure against the idea. One of the most common objections is that it goes against the spirit of the project. If you are interested, a list of objections and counterpoints could be read at Reward Board’s talk page.

As for me, I support the notion of paid editors. What swayed me to the aye side is this:

Wikipedians contribute for a variety of reasons, ranging from pure altruism to logorrhea to enjoyment of the work itself. What’s ultimately important is the goal-to write a free, open-content enyclopedia-not the private motivations of the contributors.

Heh. I’m currently working on British Malaya. So, if you’d like to see me work faster on it, how about you paying me?

There are reports of sugar shortage in four Malaysian states. While that happens, the authority, which is the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs in this case, is blaming smugglers and hoarders.

PUTRAJAYA: Low sugar cane supply in the international market has contributed to the shortage of sugar in the country, said Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal.

This is in addition to the on-going smuggling of the controlled item to neighbouring countries, he added.

On the contrary, smuggling and hoarding is not the root cause. Instead, these are mere symptoms of inefficient market. The root is inflexible price; controlled price regime.

In Malaysia, items of mundane but delicious daily want and need like chickens, salt and sugar are controlled. They’re controlled because people in the higher echelon of the Malaysian society want to protect the consumers, in particular the common people. Noble indeed but misguided.

Price is an important signal. In a free market, price fluctuates with supply and demand, constantly seeking the perfect equilibrium. If it is not allowed to seek that equilibrium, something is bound to happen. That something could be anything — smuggling activities is one of them. Currently in Malaysia, there is a price ceiling imposed on the sugar market and that price ceiling is preventing the prices from achieving its stable state.

If prices increase worldwide and Malaysia has a price ceiling on sugar, thus making Malaysian prices lower than world’s prices, a simple arbitrage demands a reasonable trader to sell sugar to the world instead of Malaysia. This is the reason why smuggling is happening; it is not because some people are naturally born criminals but rather, simple economics demands it.

Like I have said earlier, this price ceiling is there to protect the consumers, or so those in the government thought. In reality, we can clearly see how such unneeded protection is depriving consumers of sugar. This brings in a question – do we prefer higher priced sugar or no sugar at all?

I’m forcing a false dilemma on you, true. Nevertheless, distributive inefficiency is as real as it can get.