(Photo credit – bigthink.com)
I wonder what it is in man that makes him naturally want to exploit the other man. Because I was wearing a white native and looking all bright in my skin color, the guy selling a Blackberry car charger wanted me to pay 900 Naira for it. 900 Naira? For what?! That’s like 6 times the normal price.
I wanted to buy a USB data cable today and the sales person told me it was 10 pounds. USB Data cable- the long black cord that has two heads. I was about to leave and he said “For you, 6 pounds”. Why ‘for me’? Why is he doing me a favor? He doesn’t know me from anywhere. If it was 6 pounds, why didn’t he start with that?
I guess these things will not qualify me as a good negotiator or good businessman in the world’s definitions of those terms, but have you thought that maybe negotiations will be easier if everyone was true to himself. If I don’t pay someone lower than what they deserve and if you don’t sell something for more than its worth, maybe the world would be a better place.
One of the greatest commandments is to love my neighbor as myself. If I truly love my neighbor, I will not want to rip him off. Rather than trying to get to the top by stepping on other people, why don’t we just use ladders?
Food for thought:
What is money without peace?
Life nugget:
Luke 6:31 “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”
You’re probably right. May be the world will be a better place if we were all just upfront, maybe not…who knows? We are not in that alternate universe so we can’t be sure.
To address the charger/USB cord issue, in Economics, we call that differential pricing. You sell at different prices to different groups of customers based on their willingness to pay and what value they place on the product/service. It’s business, it’s life.
Should the willingness to pay or ignorance otherwise of the buyer determine the state of my own conscience? I’m not trying to be extreme here though but what happened to having a “standard”?
I did not address this from a moral stand point, I said Economics and these are the rules that apply