Surge pricing goes universal: some effects

Here's something I learnt today in an article which definitely deserves pondering by those concerned with culture, social justice and keeping an eye on corporate tactics.

In 1861 a shopkeeper in Philadelphia revolutionised the retail industry. John Wanamaker, who opened his department store in a Quaker district of the city, introduced price tags for his goods, along with the high-minded slogan: “If everyone was equal before God, then everyone would be equal before price.” The practice caught on. Up until then high-street retailers had generally operated a market-stall system of haggling on most products. Their best prices might be reserved for their best customers. Or they would weigh up each shopper and make a guess at what they could afford to pay and eventually come to an agreement.

Now, I never knew that history, though I suppose any of us would have guessed that perhaps there had to be a first place to move from haggling (and the personalised pricing that must have meant) to fixed ticket pricing. I am intrigued and delighted by the insight into how a simple change alters a whole culture for a couple of centuries across the globe. I note how it plays well with massification and the then-developing ideology of free trade.

Downsides not mentioned: this would blow a hole in rpi calculations and render difficult or impossible inflation calculations and thus problematise things like index-linked pensions or other payments relying on rpi systems (note the comment in the article "Increasingly, there is no such thing as a fixed price from which sale items deviate"). There's an interesting feed-back loop potential in that. And then there is the hint in the article that poorer people might not come out well, that they would be given higher quotes on the basis that they are less likely to buy lots.
It might also become difficult to argue for the price-lowering effects of the Market (capitalisation intended) if in fact such selective pricing is taking place. Interestingly this exposes, possibly, the reliance that market economics may have on fixed pricing as its ideological support. Now I understand that 'surge pricing' or whatever does rely on free-market justification but I suggest that offering a price based purely on demand at a particular point is not the same as offering personalised prices based on what the algorithm suggests that you are willing or able to pay. If the algorithms are using the same or similar digital shadows for you or me, they will all tend to offer similar 'deals' to us. Thus the possibility of shopping around with the consumer power that commands is nullified: this could become a sort of cartel/oligarchy arrangement powered by algorithms. This would create its own algorithmic feedback loop having the effect of ratchetting up prices over time. And I say that in contradiction to the article's assessment towards the end:
This looks a lot like the beginning of the end of John Wanamaker’s mission to establish “new, fair and most agreeable relations between the buyer and the seller” and to establish something closer to a comparison site that works both ways – we will be looking for the low-selling retailer, while the retailer will equally be scanning for the high-value customer.
I'm not sure that the algorithm's will be sufficiently differentiated. If you want a sense of how this might work, spend half an hour looking at the prices of rarer second-hand books on a variety of sites, asking yourself the question about who would buy at that price -yet probably the prices have been set by an algorithm: the idea that second hand means cheaper in most cases has been blown. Unless of course someone creates price-busting algorithms that have the consumer's better price interests at heart. Algorithm price-wars, anyone?

My own response is surprisingly visceral at a personal level. I feel that somehow this seems like a violation of natural justice -I resonate with Wanamaker's slogan about equal before God and price. And yet I find myself questioning how far that gut feeling is actually an artefact of a lifetime's exposure to fixed pricing and the way that it has become part of the way that I calculate swathes of everyday life.
Perhaps this kind of response is why "Horgan suggests that British retailers are still a bit terrified that customers will be put off by changing prices ".

I'm also thinking that it is likely to bring to the fore questions of profit; charging what the market /consumer will bear may increase an awareness of how questions of relative power are framed. Is the retailer really adding "that much" value to the product? Is the price of status projection really that high? Most of us don't quibble about the idea of a reasonable mark up for costs and a living wage, but some 'surge pricing' seems to be sheer profiteering and this would be a mechanism for that. 

So, I'm wondering whether we need to have a set of standards for algorithms which give a quality assurance which guarantees the protection of consumer interests?

Rice growing and cultural differences

In a PhD thesis, it is being proposed that the co-operativeness demanded by rice growing has generated a distinct cultural psychology to that found among wheat-growing societies.

Talhelm and his co-authors at universities in China and Michigan propose that the methods of cooperative rice farming -- common to southern China for generations -- make the culture in that region interdependent, while people in the wheat-growing north are more individualistic, a reflection of the independent form of farming practiced there over hundreds of years.

"The data suggests that legacies of farming are continuing to affect people in the modern world," Talhelm said. "It has resulted in two distinct cultural psychologies that mirror the differences between East Asia and the West." 'Rice theory' explains north-south China cultural differences -- ScienceDaily:

To me this seems very plausible and could take its place alongside the effects of the tech-complex of move-able-type printing on rag-paper as generating quite important cultural mindscapes.



What I'm left looking for with this, is how this particular difference is handed down when societies move beyond such a large demographic investment in the agricultural bases. In other words, what mechanisms are there that continue to propagate the different mindsets in populations where rice-growing or wheat-growing are not big practical factors in people's lives?



Is it that the mindset is further embedded in other institutions which take over the propagation of attituteds? If so, what institutions might they be?

The greenhouse effect that may be cooling the climate - earth - 10 October 2008 - New Scientist Environment

Have a look at this: The greenhouse effect that may be cooling the climate - earth - 10 October 2008 - New Scientist Environment it's interesting because it seems to show that there could be other man-made actions which could help mitigate climate-warming trends. Based on metereological research in Spain relating to the effects of greenhouse agriculture: "In the greenhouse region, air temperature has cooled by an average of 0.3 �C per decade since 1983. In the rest of Spain it has risen by around 0.5 �C. The satellite data revealed that the white greenhouses were much more reflective than farmland."
Of course, the effect of this agriculture on the water table is another story.

Greening The Desert

This is a sobering thing to read. "Several years ago, I travelled around Europe. It seemed to me that Europe was very nice and beautiful, with lots of nature preserved. But three feet under the surface I felt desert slowly coming in. I kept wondering why. I realized it was the mistake they made in agriculture. The beginning of the mistake is from growing meat for the king and wine for the church. All around, cow, cow, cow, grape, grape, grape. European and American agriculture started with grazing cows and growing grapes for the king and the church. They changed nature by doing this, especially on the hill slopes. Then soil erosion occurs. Only the 20% of the soil in the valleys remains healthy, and 80% of the land is depleted. Because the land is depleted, they need chemical fertilizers and pesticides."Masanobu Fukuoka - Greening The Desert: