July 08, 2005
Price Tags
One of the best markers of a First Worldom to me is the consistent use of price tags in an economy. With the capitalist attitude, there is a price for everything, and if you can pay it, great, and if you can't, then we'll offer you something else more within your range. Everything is transparent and allows the client to make the best decisions for himself. With the third world or socialist attitude, let's negotiate and haggle about everything. I will size you up and charge the highest price I can that I will guess you're willing to pay. Everyone expends significant amount of energy negotiating--even for the most trivial items--and he who masters this skill best wins.
This analysis--if correct--can be used to judge how an economy is doing, and how it will do, by comparing the frequency of price tag use across different economies. Although this barometer probably won't be useful: in Argentina (always my marker of a third-world country), at least, the correlation between chain stores and stores that use price tags (and local/non-chain stores and not using price tags but haggling over everything) is just about a perfect 100% correlation. That's an exaggeration--but only a slight one.
This led me to speculate as to the origin of the price tag. I thought of this while in an Au Bon Pain with a friend yesterday, and I speculated that it was born with the department store (it sounds like something the old Sears would have done). My friend thought that it came with the rise of the old mains street General Store, where the proprietor and employees weren't able to keep track of everything being sold and their cost.
If anyone has any leads on this, let me know!
Posted by Morgan at 02:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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