Bad Money Drives out Good?
Conrad Ho, Mar. 4, 2015, Hong Kong
Back in the 16th century in England, Sir Thomas Gresham, the financier for King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth I, found that there was a widespread practice among his countrymen, chipping away parts of the silver coins they received and used the debased coins in the market. Over time, more and more debased coins were in circulation while more and more good coins were retained. He described the phenomenon as “bad money drives out good”, a collective social behavior having substantial implications on currency circulation. Named after him, the Gresham’s Law has since evolved into a renowned economic theory.
Social scientists have discovered recently that such “bad money drives out good” collective social behavior has, in fact, been governing many social phenomena apparently unrelated to economics. In the age of information nowadays, we have to deal with information all the time, just like currency. The world-wide web is the “market” in which the circulation and exchanges of information occur. As an economics major while in university, Conrad is wondering whether bad information drives out good.
For instance, if a doctoral candidate could get his doctorate by employing a ghostwriter to synthesize a plagiarized thesis, over time, would it induce more and more candidates to produce bad theses? The “market” ( the academic field) would, thus, have less and less good theses – poor theses (information) drive out good (information). Another example, when more and more consumers ask for free softwares, software developers who cannot work for free for long can only look for other income sources to subsidize the freebies. Who will be willing to offer such indirect subsidies to consumers? Needless to say, those who can eventually benefit from the consumers (such as advertisers). Thus, loads of advertisements come along with free softwares, and data of free software users are collected for commercial uses. At the end of the day, software developers will serve their subsidizers more, or the consumers who do not pay? The answer is more than obvious. Again, poor softwares (information) drive out good (information). One more example, a book priced at US$30 overseas can only be sold for US$4.50-US$6 in China for the Chinese translation version, because any book fetching for higher prices will attract pirates to reproduce unauthorized copies. Under such circumstances, where will good authors choose to publish their books? Again, poor books (information) drive out good (information).
After reading the article of Mainland instructor Mr Feng Tianpeng (posted in Weixin friend-group on 4 March 2015) on how several years of free softwares have killed essentially all good software developers, I realize that poor Kinesiology may have been working to drive out good kinesiology. There are self-claimed kinesiology instructors offering training in the market, despite having only attended a few days’ lessons or read a couple of books. This is of course a far more convenient shortcut, and thus less costly, than receiving sufficient formal training to become registered instructors. Yet, at the same time, does the market know how to, or willing to, identify registered kinesiology instructors (borrowing the words of Mr. Feng in his article: “(consumers saying) you need not be that righteous!”)? If so, who would have the motivation to attend formal training of higher cost? At the end of the day, would the market be flooded with poor or good kinesiology instructors?
What can be done? I do not know how others will answer, nor may I represent them. I only know what I will do – stand firm and be a good Kinesiology instructor anyway.
