Further to Vedder's review of Perelman, I regret, of course, that Perelman,
whom I intended to support, takes issue with me. Since he does not
explicitly say why, I am at a loss.

However, the current issue of David Warsh's excellent blog,
<economicprincipals.com>, reviews some recent history of the controversy
over whether telecasting and related communication industries are public
goods. He makes the point, as did Samuelson and others, that here is a case
where variable costs are very low relative to fixed costs, so marginal-cost
pricing is in order. Professor Vedder's generalization that the case of
MC<AC ended with the railroad era might be questioned. Plus, of course, the
r.r. era has not entirely ended anyway, and its decline in intra-urban
transit has been hastened by the loss of understanding of the principles of
marginal-cost pricing.

Mason Gaffney