A lesson in Springsteen-onomics

Bruce Springsteen has joined class-action lawsuit designed to punish Ticketmaster for what he considers price-gouging at his concerts.

It seems one of Ticketron’s affiliates charged up to 10 times the face value of tickets for one of The Boss’ concerts in his home state of New Jersey.

“I have decided to pursue a class action suit against Ticketmaster for unfair business practices and acting as a monopoly,” he said in a written statement on his blog. “Artist (sic) have no choice nor do fans. For many years we have all paid that extra fee for the service charges when we buy tickets. They make Millions of dollars on when we have to buy tickets from them and offer us nothing in return except bad business practices. Please respond via the comments box if you would like to be part of the suit. Enough is enough.”

In New Jersey, Democratic politicians, eager to get The Boss behind them, have jumped on the bandwagon, demanding investigations of Ticketmaster’s business practices. The state’s attorney general is also considering action – trying to determine if laws were broken.

I’d like to use this recent kerfuffle to provide a much-needed lesson on freedom.
Bruce Springsteen makes a lot of money – a lot of money. I have seen estimates of his net worth that exceed $100 million. Good for him. He worked hard. He’s got talent. He used it to earn big bucks. That’s the American way.

But how would he like it if the government capped his earnings?

What if he were told how much he could earn per recording or per concert?

Do you think this self-proclaimed working-class hero would like that?

What would you think of that?

In effect, that is exactly what he and the politicians lining up behind him are doing.

They want to dictate to Ticketmaster how much they can charge for the work it does.

Perhaps Bruce Springsteen hasn’t thought of it, but Ticketmaster employs many hardworking people to provide its service. Any successful business, even a monopoly on anything but essential services, can only charge what the free market will bear.

If there are people willing to pay $1,000 for a Bruce Springsteen ticket, don’t they have the right to do that? Isn’t that one of the reasons people work hard to earn lots of money? If there is no advantage to being wealthy, who is going to strive to be wealthy and successful in business, and where will we all be if those incentives are taken away one by one?

This may not seem like the most important example of how the free market is under attack in our country at this moment – and it’s not. But I hope it is one people can understand.

Bruce Springsteen says his fans don’t have a “choice.”

Actually, they do. They can refuse to pay the exorbitant prices for tickets – and guess what? Those prices will fall.

But as long as people are willing to pay $1,000 for a ticket to his concert, it’s absurd to demand that prices be artificially lowered – just as it would be to insist Bruce Springsteen work for less.

Now, I admit, I am not a Bruce Springsteen fan.

When I was a music critic, I was offered tickets to a private performance of his E-Street Band in a club with a capacity of 50 people. I gave the tickets away! I could have sold them, no doubt, for $1,000. But I chose freely to give them away.

That’s the beautiful thing about freedom. We make choices. We don’t just do what we’re told. We don’t give authority to others to make our choices for us. We don’t have two sets of rules – one for elite celebrities and politicians and another for the rest of us.

Do you want to see the free-enterprise system that has provided so many blessings to this country completely eroded and undermined?

That’s a question we all need to think about today – because it’s happening. This is the mentality of the ruling elite in Washington today – the people Bruce Springsteen helped to elect. It’s happening fast. We won’t even know what we’ve lost until it’s too late.