Victor D. López's Blog: Victor D. Lopez, page 96

Do you want a government you can believe in again? Look beyond the party label!

Do you want a government you can believe in again? Look beyond the party label!

We have long been a house divided by our party affiliations. For too many voters, the (D), (R) and, to a lesser extent, the (I) after a candidate's name is often the deciding factor in the decision making that takes place in the privacy of the voting booth. We vote not for the most qualified, competent, or honest candidate, but rather for the candidate that sports our approved party label. And we re-elect candidates we know to be inept, self-serving, misguided and even corrupt time and again because "they are one of us." And then we shake our heads and bemoan the fact that that only approximately 40 percent of Americans think the President is doing a good job (true of both D and R presidents in recent memory) and a whopping 14 percent of Americans think Congress is just swell.

To make matters worse, after voting-in the latest disappointment, rather than holding the person to account and vowing to be more careful when next we cast our vote, we make excuses for their bad behavior/incompetence/corruptness/general cluelessness/lack of leadership (need I go on?) and blame the "other side," the "enemy," you know, the guys or gals who sport a letter other than that of our candidate after their name.  Or we blame the media–or at least that segment of the media we dislike for not genuflecting on cue in the general direction of "our party label."

We ought to be ashamed of ourselves far more than the incompetent/self-serving/corrupt/clueless ninnies we keep (repeatedly) electing to high office all over this land. We participate in political campaigns that seem like outtakes from a demented montage of Fellini and Monty Python Films intended to amuse, disturb and ultimately motivate a country of lemmings into doing what they do naturally: march behind their appropriate (R) or (D) banner-carrying leader over the nearest chasm.

So what's the answer? It's simple, really. We need to stop identifying with a party that pushes a particular brand of quasi-extremism (the Democratic left wing vs. the Republican right-wing) and look at candidates as individuals. We need to hold everyone–including those we support who carry the "right" letter after their names–to account for what they say and do rather than giving them a pass based on their political affiliation. And we need to stop rewarding politicians and their handlers for engaging in the politics of personal attacks and polarization while failing to answer the relevant questions repeatedly asked of them with impunity. We deserve better than that.

I am a life-long Republican. My politics on most issues are right-of-center. My best friend is a life-long Democrat whose politics on most issues are left of center. He was a delegate for the People's Party when we were in college together, and I was–am–a Reagan republican. Our friendship runs far deeper than politics, political philosophies or such silly things as party affiliations. We both care deeply about politics and are strong advocates for our very different points of view. But in the hundreds upon hundreds of hours that we have spent discussing politics from the start of our unique friendship in high school to this day, there has never been a single time–not once–when we could not reach a mutually acceptable agreement on fixing the very real problems of the world (on paper, at least) through compromise. Name a controversial issue and we have almost certainly touched on it more than once through the years, debated it at length and reached a mutually satisfactory compromise on what ought to be done to resolve it. Every time. From our teens through our early fifties. On every issue from abortion to the welfare state to socialized medicine and beyond. Why the hell can't our politicians do that?

So what's our secret beyond our obvious willingness to compromise? Simple: mutual trust, mutual respect, an unwavering belief in each others' integrity, and the fundamental understanding that we both want the same things–a better, more just, more equitable society. Our approaches are different, our political philosophies likewise, but our ends are the same. And neither of us is arrogant enough to think we have all the right answers.  If Ken were to run for any office, I would be proud to vote for him and would probably go around handing out leaflets on his behalf. I know he would do the same for me. It is not friendship that would motivate me to support him, but the knowledge that he would do his level best to bring about goals we both believe in–and that he would be open to alternate means of reaching those goals, even if they go against party dogma. I trust him implicitly. His principles are not for sale. He stands for something. He wants the same things I do and is willing to compromise to achieve them. When did that particular quality become a liability in a politician or in a human being outside of Washington D.C., the local state houses and talk radio?

In a word, I would support my liberal democratic best friend because he has the only letter that matters after his name: an I for Integrity. Unlike experience, intelligence, and even competence which can be borrowed, bought or rented by the hour in the form of advisers, employees, aides, and consultants, integrity is that rarest, most precious of assets that any politician can possess and the only one that cannot be bought or borrowed. As long as we continue to accept the politics of polarization and vote for unqualified, untrustworthy, unproven or unknown candidates based on their party affiliation, their ability to make nice speeches, and their penchant for emphatically espousing empty slogans, we will continue to have a government that perpetually and predictably disappoints and dismays us. In short, we will continue to have precisely the kind of government we deserve.

Concerted Action Needed to Lower the High Cost of College Textbooks

Two years ago I published an article on legislative efforts at the state and federal levels to rein in the high price of college textbooks ("Legislating Relief for the High Cost of College Textbooks: a Brief Analysis of the Current Law and its Implication for Students, Faculty and the Publishing Industry" Journal of Legal Studies in Business, Vol. 15 (2009)). These legislative efforts largely require information to be provided to students on a timely basis on textbook adoptions so that they can find lesser expensive sources for procuring the textbooks they need for class. They also generally attempt to regulate direct and indirect payments and incentives that publishers can make to adopters and prospective adopters of their textbooks. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of these measures in mitigating the nearly $1,000 per year average cost to students for textbooks at undergraduate institutions.

Although I strongly support these efforts to bring greater transparency to the textbook adoption process and to provide students with timely information about book adoptions whenever possible so that they can find the best price for their textbooks at new and used retailers online and elsewhere if they are willing to forego the convenience of purchasing their books at their campus store, I don't believe that these measures by themselves will significantly impact the price of college textbooks in the long term since none address the heart of the problem. For a complete discussion of the issue, please read my article. The core of the problem is that textbook production under the traditional model of production and distribution relied upon by the remaining four major publishers of college textbooks (Thomson, McGraw-Hill, Wiley, and Pearson) is an expensive proposition. The push model of textbook distribution is a very expensive proposition for publishers who rely upon armies of sales representatives to market their books by keeping in constant personal, email and phone contact with prospective and current adopters. Add to this the fact that any textbook edition has approximately a three-year window of profitability for publishers before the used book market (from which neither publishers nor authors receive any compensation) effectively chokes off their new book sales. With only three years in which to reap significant profits for new books, publishers push for new editions every three years like clockwork—whether changes in the subject matter merit a new edition or not—just to kill off sales of used textbooks and maximize new book sales profits.

Lest I be misunderstood, I so not blame publishers alone for the high cost of college textbooks, though they are an easy target and as such are often unfairly maligned—often by the very people who profit the most from the current paradigm. According to a recent independent report, for each dollar of textbook sales, the publisher makes seven cents profit and spends 32.2 cents for printing and editorial costs, 10 cents for administrative costs, and 15.4 cents for marketing costs. The net percentage of profit to the publisher is 10.8 percent on the sale of textbooks. College bookstores make 40 percent of their revenue from new book sales and 17 percent of their revenue from used book sales, with the remainder coming from other sources such as clothing and supplies.

Decreased competition in the industry is another reason that impacts not only on the price but on the availability of alternative editions from the diminished pool of publishers. When I was shopping around for a publisher for my first business law textbook (Business Law: an Introduction 1e) as a young and as yet unproven textbook author in the late 1980's with only one unrelated trade book publication to his credit, I had three publishers sufficiently interested in the book to fly to New York to meet with me in person (West, Houghton Mifflin and Irwin). After meeting with me and seeing a textbook proposal without even sample chapters at the time, two of those were interested enough in the project to pursue the matter further until I signed with Irwin/Mirror Press. Two of those publishers no longer exist (Houghton Mifflin and Irwin) as independent publishers. With the consolidation of publishers, competing titles and niche publications are not welcomed as they adversely impact the bottom line. Even though my first textbook was used by universities, colleges and trade schools in at least 37 states, I adopters requests for updates and my own went unheeded for more than a decade and it competed directly with more profitable titles until it finally was allowed to go out of print. Once the book was no longer in print, the copyright reverted to me and I was able to publish a sorely needed major revision and expansion through my new publisher, Textbook Media, earlier this year, But my new publisher does not use the push model and there is no army of sales reps trying to sell the book to prospective adopters. Consequently, even though the book sells starting at less than $10 in eBook versions and approximately $35 for eBook and soft-bound versions, adoptions will be slow to come and profitability for both my publisher and for me will be miniscule in relation to the approximate $160 it would retail for in hard cover at my original publisher. For me, the possibility of making the book available once again to past loyal adopters is much more important than its profitability or the royalties I may glean for my three years of effort to bring the new edition to market. I believe in this new model so much, in fact, that I released not one but two textbooks through Textbook Media: Business Law and the Legal Environment of Business 2e (2010) and Business Law: an Introduction 2e (2011). These books were previously published by Prentice Hall and Irwin/McGraw Hill respectively in their first editions and are now both available at a very small fraction of their original cost in expanded and updated editions. Whether they will once again find their markets is a different question. My publisher and I are betting that they will, but it is hard to compete with the push model and this grand experiment may well prove to be an economic failure.

Which finally brings me to the real point of this article. The traditional textbook model that gives us in my field (legal studies/business law/legal environment) leading textbooks that are generally priced at close to $200 each (with even custom-published, paperback versions of these costing more than $100 for students) is not going to be displaced any time soon by lower-cost models on any wide scale. This means that the $200 textbook (with its $150 used counterparts) will be with us for the foreseeable future unless a better way can be found through cooperative efforts among government, universities and faculty. Here are some quick thoughts on these that could have a real impact on both lowering the cost and increasing choices for college professors and students alike:

1    If the federal government and state governments are serious about lowering the cost of college textbooks, they should study ways of directly supporting lower cost options through grants. Content experts could be enticed to write textbooks to be released into the public domain and made available as cost-free options for adopters in colleges and universities. This would not supplant but rather supplement existing textbooks, but the availability of grant-subsidized textbooks free of charge would pressure traditional publishers to be more competitive in their pricing strategies and offer more low-cost options than their current meager offerings.

2.      Universities should explore the option of providing either release time or significant grants to faculty members who are willing to undertake either individual or collaborative textbook publishers with colleagues at their home institutions or elsewhere. These textbooks could be published in-house and made available to students at the possible lowest cost. The unfortunate reality at present is that there is no real incentive for faculty to undertake the arduous and demanding process of textbook writing as textbook publication is generally seen as less desirable than scholarly article publications in refereed journals. It takes generally three to five years to research, write, edit and publish a textbook. In my personal experience, the amount of time that I need to devote to a single textbook or major revision is about the same required to publish five to ten peer-reviewed articles. Yet most institutions will give no greater weight to a textbook publication than to a refereed article. That leaves absolutely no incentive (other than the prospect of royalties) for faculty to pursue textbook projects as such projects will not stand up well to a reasonable risk/benefit analysis.

3.      Faculty members need to become more sensitive to the cost of textbooks for their students and carefully consider the ancillary materials that they require publishers to provide which can add significantly to the cost of each textbook sold. Class management tools, homework or assignment management software, full-color illustrations in textbooks, expansive test banks, Videos, expansive instructor's manuals, and the myriad other ancillary materials that many faculty members tell publishers they want (but I suspect most never actually use) add to the overall cost of a textbook that is passed on to students. Overuse of pedagogical devices such as glossaries, sidebars, case studies, cases, charts, illustrations and anything else that the sometimes overactive minds of textbook writers can throw in to make their titles "stand out" from the rest (or simply keep up with the rest) also add to the cost of textbooks, giving us thousand-plus page monstrosities that often distract students far more than they instruct them. Frankly, faculty members also need to be more proactive in seeking out the available alternatives rather than waiting for the recommendations of their sales reps. We need to go beyond looking at review copies of the latest textbooks that the traditional publishers send us periodically and also need to ask the question that every sales rep hates to answer: "What is the price of this textbook to the bookstore?" (Add 25% to whatever they say to know what it will cost our students); "Is the book available in a low-cost custom edition (and what is the price to the bookstore if it is)?" Is the book available directly to students (and what is the price)?" "Do you offer a book rental option (and what is the price and limitations for students—e.g., how long do they have to access the book and is the license transferable by them)?"

The reasons for the high cost of textbook are many and varied. There is no single solution that will address them all. But if we continue to seek creative solutions to the problem, we will see meaningful results in a reasonably short period of time. The simple fact is that the status quo is not sustainable, especially during tough economic times when the students with the greatest need to continue their education may find the high cost of textbooks an insurmountable obstacle in the way of completing their studies and moving forward on the path to a better life.

Ten Characteristics of Principled Leaders

It is impossible to have any meaningful discussion of ethics without acknowledging the fact that there is no single standard of ethical conduct that all reasonable people can agree on. A reasonable, honorable person who draws her ethical system from a relativistic, teleological school of ethics like utilitarianism will inevitably clash with an equally reasonable and honorable person who bases his ethical system on one of the ethical schools under the umbrella of deontology. The ethical decisions of the former will be informed by her relativistic view of right and wrong, while the latter's will be informed by an equally valid but inconsistent ethical system in which the intended consequence of one's actions is largely irrelevant in gauging the ethical value of one's conduct. Thus, when viewed under a utilitarian filter, if one were able to travel back in time, strangling a baby Adolph Hitler in his cradle when he had not yet committed any atrocities is justifiable conduct as it will save the lives of more than seven million innocent victims in the future, but under a filter of deontology (both religious and secular) such conduct would be morally wrong because it would involve the killing of an innocent infant who had not yet committed any crime.

In a similar vein, we must recognize the simple pragmatic fact that there are political and ethical issues on which we as a society may never agree. The death penalty and abortion immediately come to mind. Despite the best efforts of each side on those polarizing issues to marginalize, misrepresent and even dehumanize the other, the honest, simple fact is that both sides can justify their positions with equally sound ethical arguments based on diametrically opposed schools of ethics. No amount of acrimonious debate can change that fact.

Fortunately, on most issues at least, people of conscience can agree on what constitutes ethical conduct. This is certainly true in the realm of business, government and academe where principled leaders abound whose ethics are informed by both absolutist and relativistic schools of ethics. In my experience what makes these individuals ethical leaders is their consistent adherence to the following ten principles:

They put the interests of the institution they serve above their own self interest;
They understand that character is defined by the small acts they perform when nobody is looking;
They recognize that respect must be earned and nurtured over time but can be lost in an instant;
They promote their people, not themselves;
They take responsibility for their personal failures and for the failures of the groups they lead;
They share credit for their successes with the individuals who made them possible;
They are consistent and predictable in their decision making and in the exercise of their discretion;
They strive to do what is right rather than what is expedient, regardless of the consequences to themselves;
 They do not fear making unpopular decisions and clearly communicate their rationale for making such decisions to those affected by them;
They only serve institutions that do not require them to compromise their principles.


Principled leaders make an enormous impact on the organizations they serve at all levels, and are often most appreciated after they retire or move on, their contributions and impact most poignant and palpable in their absence.

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PLEASE NOTE: I have written about this issue before in various venues, and most recently published an article on the issue in the University of Botswana Law Journal (available here).