Queue for the staffed checkout by all means

A useful little example of this free market thing here. The grand freedom is that we, us consumers, bend the capitalists to our will by our actions.

Yes, yes, of course the capitalists are greedy for our money, the profits that can be expropriated and all the rest. But it is we who decide which capitalist - or none - gets them. That’s the joy of the system itself:

The town where pensioners are boycotting self-checkouts

Campaign by senior citizens to boycott automated tills aims to protect local jobs and fight isolation in the community

We do indeed think that “protect local jobs” is a foolishness. Jobs are a cost, not a benefit. Removing costs from the retail process will - in a free market of course - reduce the costs of providing retail and thus lower prices to us, the retail consumers.

But the aim of the economy thing - of civilisation itself - is the maximisation of utility, not mere gilt and pelf. So, if biddies wish to have their purchases rung up by a human then why not? More than that - if biddies so desire then they should indeed so act. For acting by our desires is the very method by which we bend the capitalists to our wishes.

We do have choices in this life - that free bit of free markets - and we should act according to our desires. This could be recycling everything, organic mung beans only, fossil fuel free. It could be drill baby drill and carve me off another slice of that steak. Or, as here, we want that human interaction as we shop. Your, our, their desires are your, our, their, not to be gainsaid either. What determines personal utility is personal.

In a market economy the money is currently fructifying in our pockets. Whose they move to next is something we decide. Thus we should - must - use this power to bend suppliers to our will. Antony, Glen, Ken, David and the others are examplars of this glorious power that we the people have over the economy. We should all be using that power to enforce our wishes.

Note that we’ve not got to win in any democratic sense of gaining a majority. We’ve only got to win enough that one supplier out there thinks it worth succumbing to the joys of that incoming, if specialist, cashflow. Slow shopping becomes a thing and why not?

The entire point being that if that makes you happy then that’s great, and isn’t it just stupendous that the power to create your desire rests with you?

Free markets, eh?

Tim Worstall