There is a little contretemps over the management of Wickes (a matter to do with tradesmen we believe) shouting that of course everyone should be celebrating 2SLGBTQ+ or something. Others insisting that well, if they’re going to start ramming that idea down our throats then we’ll not shop there - leading to that fall in the share price.

Good.

Not the idea of 2SLGBTQ+ or not, the celebration of or not, but the idea and practice of boycotts - and their opposite the deliberately thought through extra purchase. As happened with Chik-Fil-A over a related issue some years back, when those supporting their stance deliberately and offensively went to eat mor’ chikkin in the parking lots in celebration.

How we spend our money is how we bend producers to our will.

Capitalists desire our money. In fact, any producer of anything does. In order to get our money the producer has to pleasure us sufficiently to get us to hand over that cash. Free markets mean that anyone can set up - that is what the free means, freedom of entry - to make any attempt to pleasure us enough to hand over our money.

Excellent, our job as consumers is to dispose of our money in the manner that most pleasures us - maximises our utility in the technical jargon. If this includes strong celebrations of 2SLGBTQ+ then we should - note should - spend our money with those who display such support. If it doesn’t then we should - again note, should - not spend our money in such places.

The actual issue here we’re not commenting upon, that’s not for us to have an official view upon in the slightest. A step back and of course consenting adults get to do as consenting adults wish, that’s the core of the liberal argument. But that includes, obviously enough, deploying one’s own cash in whatever manner one wishes - again the core of the liberal argument.

Which is that joy of the capitalist and free market system. We’ve got the incentive for producers to do as we wish them to, we’ve got the feedback mechanism to force that behaviour. Their greed for our cash plus our ability to direct our cash gives us the one and only system where we all get to vote our views each and every day. What an excellent system, eh?

We can even go further. Those aiming at the mass market have to be careful of those utils of the mass market. Anheuser Busch trying the idea with Bud Light - the working man’s beer heavily associated with F-150s and the like - might not have been the wisest move. Trying it with Michelob wouldn’t have worried anyone because who would worry about that beer? Similarly, Wickes might not have made the wisest choice given their customer base.

But that free entry does allow capitalist greed to aim at niches too. Someone is making a fortune out of all those flags. There are people profiting from heavier foundation creams and clothes with tucks. The system allows both the mass market offerings that have to average out those utils and also the niches where very specific desires can be profited from.

It is only free market capitalism that gives us both kinds of music, country and western.

Our role in the system is to force the producers to pleasure us by judicious spending of our own money. Therefore we should do just that, spend on those who pleasure us.

What it is that people are using as their measure is the deeply unimportant thing - liberals, recall, your life, your decisions about it. That everyone gets to act upon their desires is the very joy of this capitalist free marketry.