fatvegan

People always laugh at Indians (and other cultures) that have a high emphasis on haggling. But after having thought about price discrimination for a bit, and thinking about optimal output levels, and the good things that can happen if you have consumers owning the means of production, I've decided that haggling is a really nifty idea. It means that producers can still make a profit without slaving themselves to death, but the very poor can still afford their products. Hagglings means that producers make a higher profit from people who value their produce more highly. Instead of the same profit from everyone. People complain about Westerners having to pay more when they go into foreign markets and the like, but it's entirely reasonable since we value the items more "highly", at least in a superficial economics sense. So Cuba has a dual economy which is very messy to administer and tends to force a lot of poorer tourists (like me) out of their market. But in India, they don't discourage tourists from coming, the producers make a living, and the people in their own country can still afford to buy stuff. If Indian hagglers were in charge of government managed natural monopolies then you probably wouldn't have to worry about what price to charge. They'd work it out on a case by case basis.