Fear of the marketplace
"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."
-- John F Kennedy
"In North America and Europe bargaining is restricted to expensive or one-of-a-kind items (automobiles, jewellery, art, real estate, trade sales of businesses) and informal sales settings such as flea markets and garage sales. In other regions of the world bargaining may be the norm even for small commercial transactions. In Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia where locals haggle for goods and services everywhere from street markets to hotels, haggling is a strong cultural tradition that even children learn from a young age."
-- Wikipedia, "Bargaining"
There are some places in the world where to get a bargain means that you've used your market savvy to nick some of the vendors' profit back for yourself. It's a win in the game. In America, getting a bargain generally means the vendor had decided to lower her list price on a certain item for a short period of time. There is a "win" involved, but it's more like winning at slots than winning at chess. You'd not believe it from looking at the crazed shoppers waiting out front of Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve, but American-style bargain hunting is a far more passive experience than it is elsewhere.
I have a hypothesis that Americans are afraid of haggling. It's a carefully taught agoraphobia - in the true translation of the term, "fear of the marketplace." It has a twofold basis. On one side, the dogma that only the most clever can successfully negotiate a deal. On the other, the forced separation between buyers and sellers. Transactions are automated and anonymized. The pace is quickened to limit a consumer's ability to research actual value.
This is a pretty major topic, so I'll be doing this as a multiple article series over the next couple of weeks. To give you an idea of where we're headed, I've provided this handy timeline.
Spiffy, no?
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