I am also very aware of changes in the way people interact with cultural works, with especially music, and that not all of that change is positive. Sunday I took my ten year old daughter for a klezmer clarinet lesson in Queens, about a 50 minute drive each way. We do this one a week, although she takes lessons with two other teachers who are about the same distance away from our house. The other two lessons are classical music, and we as a family buy a lot of sheet music and CDs. My daughter’s clarinet teacher has two CDs out, and we love them. I was asking her if she was going to put out a third CD and she said no; it was too expensive to do, and besides, people don’t really listen to music they way they used to. She said she used to make her grocery money from CD sales, and now can’t. She makes most of her money (and that is not much) playing at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Other performances don’t pay much. She lives in a 500 foot apartment with spare furnishings, and is a wonderful musician with an impressive classical training. She is struggling to make ends meet. I hear similar stories often, from my clarinet repair person (also in Queens) who repairs woodwinds and brass for many NYC studio and jazz sidemen (and women). I have friends who play in classical orchestras who need to work as many side jobs as they can too. Alas, cracking on file sharing is one route — but it is not the only, and maybe not the most important for the 99%. We need to find a way to fund culture that ensures a diverse society can flourish. 

On one point I strongly disagree with the review: the allegation that I take occasional cheap shots at Republicans. I don’t any shots at Republicans at all, nor would I want to. The book is quite complimentary of the conservative economics of Hayek and von Mises, just like Moral Panics relied heavily on Joseph Schumpeter. My economic politics lean toward these Austrian scholars rather than liberals such as Robert Reich.

Perhaps what you are thinking of is my criticism of trickle-down economics and the reduction in marginal tax rates. I am critical of these, but these criticisms are shared by across a number of sections of the political spectrum (although not all to be sure). Importantly, as you fail to note,  I point out on page 100 that Bill Clinton’s approaches to these issues “were no different” than those of his Republican predecessors and successors and that the steepest increase in income redistribution favoring the 1% occurred during Clinton’s presidency. Those who read pages 107 to 113 will see that there are no cheap shots taken against anyone, and certainly nor based on party. For the record, I am a registered Independent.