The two main wings of the neoclassical school—conservatives and liberals—
are mainly divided over how each sees the potential for market failure and
the role of governments. The latter are more open to the idea that markets
sometimes fail and that governments will occasionally need to step in to set
things right. However, in both cases, State intervention should be minimized
to providing meritorious public goods (e.g. museums, libraries, and “high
art and culture”), bringing a small number of essential services to areas not
served by private business (e.g. broadband internet to rural communities), and
striking a balance between the public good qualities of information versus
protecting its status as valuable property. Conservative economists are likely to
stress the need for strong government intervention to protect private property
rights in information, while their liberal counterparts are more inclined to
promote the idea that the wider the information is spread the more valuable
it is. Information is a public good because after the high cost of producing
the ! rst copy of information is absorbed, the subsequent cost of reproducing,
transmitting, and storing it declines quickly to zero—qualities that have been
ampli! ed greatly by digital communication technologies. Furthermore, when
I consume information, it is still available for others to enjoy (i.e. it is nonrivalrous).
For these reasons, the cost of excluding people from information is
socially and economically inef! cient, a conclusion that leads many economists
to oppose strict copyright rules (e.g. Atkinson 2010: 13; Hayek 1945: 519;
Pool 1990).