In the interest of respecting privacy I am neither answering nor directing
this at anyone unnamed.  The one exception I justify because the person has
made himself--as I have--a public figure on this issue.

Someone thought to address me privately.  No one ever need think they must
do such a thing privately or at all.  I love strong debate and satire, to
give and to take it.  So here goes.  I feel strongly that Lebrecht and
comments in his favor are being obtusely misinterpreted.

Satz is only the most obvious example.  He is wrong.  I don't know where
his interests lie, but as an economics teacher and an exponent of limited
government, I can assure you that real estate agents, architects, doctors
and lawyers (so he and I are both included) are not very good examples
of an unbridled market.  Government licenses them all.  Government always
works an infringement on the marketplace, sometimes, perhaps, for good
or out of what it feels is necessity, but still an infringement.  A free
market would not necessarily eliminate real estate agents and lawyers, but
it would eliminate licensing.  One always has the option to sue to recover
damages for incompetence and misrepresentation.  Licensed professions,
and that surely includes teaching, are notorious for protecting the
superannuated.  I taught also and enjoyed the benefits of tenure.  It may
have its uses.  But it still exists as a perpetuation of inherited feudal
privileges, not to provide the best product or service at the lowest price.
I am surely not saying that big business doesn't also use every trick in
the book to undermine the same marketplace it praises when all are
watching.  What I am saying is no group has a monopoly on virtue but all
would use the power of government as if they did.

Freedom of inquiry implies the right to be wrong.  It even implies the
right to be uncivil.  If it doesn't than we are promoting a theocracy
worse than that attributed to the Puritans, who were in many ways more
liberal-minded than our most prestigious institutes of learning and
intellectuals today.

It would be rather refreshing to see just who would show up were a concert
to be held in an old movie theater with good acoustics.  The performers
would be young and inspired artists.  That would help keep the price of
admission down and to deny the conferring of any unearned merit on the
audience.  The audience could come as they are, in their pajamas if they
wished, because the audience is not the performance, the music is.

Pavarotti et al.  play on brand recognition.  It is like wine selection.
In expensive restaurants, few diners will choose the cheapest wine although
it may be the best or indistinguishable from one costing many times as
much.  Pit a very expensive, moderate priced and bargain wine against each
other in a blindfold test.  As often as not the bargain wine will win or
the selections will be all over the place.  Please don't use the flawed
argument about the educated palate.  There is no point confusing present
enjoyment with snobbery.

Andrew E.  Carlan (here just another voice promoting his own viewpoint)