In Munich, my first visit for about a decade, for a brief pre-Christmas holiday. Nobody does Christmas better than the Germans and no Germans do it better than the Münchner.
Helen and I thought we’d take in a few of the city sights including the splendid and immense Residenz, the former royal palace in the Altstadt. We paid to see the Treasury, the Museum and the Theatre then tried to enter the first of these but an old man at the entrance pointed to my rucksack, indicating I was to check it in, and to Helen’s new manfrotto camera tripod and said that she couldn’t take that in either because it was ‘professional’ equipment.
Helen explained that she wasn’t a professional photographer (here’s her Flikr photostream) and that she simply wanted to take good photos. The doorman indicated to other visitors inside, taking blurry shots in the darkness with their crummy point-and-shoot snappies. ‘Other people have no problem’, he said.
We tried to point out that hand-held cameras and long exposures would result in bad photographs. ‘So you’re saying I can take photos, but only bad photos?’ asked Helen. Without irony this old German – certainly old enough to have been alive during WWII replied - ‘I am only following the rules. Rules are rules’.
To understand what was really happening here it’s probably best to look beyond traditional prejudices about the German character, move quickly past that unnerving remark from the old man and consider instead the relatively recent development of the concept in economics of rent seeking.
Rent seeking occurs when an agent makes money not by producing wealth but by manipulating the regulatory framework to extract uncompensated value. Rent seeking makes no contribution to productivity and is often an effect of monopoly abuse. The Economist defines it as ‘Cutting yourself a bigger slice of the cake rather than making the cake bigger. Trying to make more money without producing more for customers‘.
In the example of the insane rules at the Residenz, perfectly capable photographers who have paid to view the rooms are not prevented from taking photographs but are prevented from taking good photographs. Then the organisation that controls the Residenz is able to sell the only good photos of the wonderful interiors.
It’s despicable but predictable behaviour. My advice is to visit the Residenz, if you wish, but on no account buy anything at all from their shop.