‽istis reclaims transactions (weekending September 25th 2021)
This week ‽istis purchased a redundant prop from
a hotel – once used, perhaps, as a bar for a specific cuisine-themed night
with, possibly, matching drinks and (Pistis fears) stereotypical national or
regional dress for staff and, maybe, besported by particularly enthusiastic
guests!
Plenty to
wonder here, but the pitch (the nearest that Pistis might get to an
‘Apprentice’-style task), over a congenial cup of coffee, went something like
this:
·
been
walking past it for about a year - unused, taking up space in a garage with old
chairs
·
likely
that neither of us need it; seems that you may not want it; I’d quite like it
·
little
intrinsic value
And, with candour, we acknowledged that worth maybe what
someone is willing to pay.
So, an offer was made with commitments as sweeteners and maybe
conscious-salvers: on the purchaser’s side – to match the payment with a
donation to a prominent, literally life-saving, charity; and, on the other
side, to put the money received in the tips jar, to be shared by all staff[i].
And in this upholstered and softly-furnished ‘market place’
the process and outcome proved mutually satisfactory. Hard to find evidence of
exploitation, of margins squeezed to the barely bearable to fight off the
competition, of profit disproportionately lining the pocket of a chief
executive officer at the top of a pyramid of necessary and dependent whole
system activity.
So, in a week ending with queues outside petrol stations and when
the impact of gas price rises perhaps remind us that free market economics may
not always have been that free; that regulation, caps, recommended ‘switching’
and plenty of competition may not always guarantee value for money, long-term
security, reasonable price or affordability, quantity or quality of goods and
services - Pistis wondered whether there might be lessons to be learned and
scaled-up from an exchange over a cup of
coffee in a hotel bar.
And ‽istis also wondered whether this might be yet another purchase dependent on that (perhaps, possibly, maybe) old (self-)deceptive capitalist trick of a want framed as a need? Finally ‽istis pondered - what if my wants came second to others' needs a little more often and a little more globally, well just imagine how different the world might be...
©
Pistis
NB: further reflections and comments linked to
this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily
indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders.
‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome…
[i] In
touch with the UK zeitgeist and law, also this week: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58669632
