How the Quakers Became Unlikely Economic Innovators by Inventing the Price Tag (aeon.co)

Belying its simplicity and ubiquity, the price tag is a surprisingly recent economic development, Aeon magazine writes. For centuries, haggling was the norm, ultimately developing into a system that required clerks and shopkeepers to train as negotiators. In the mid-19th century, however, Quakers in the US began to believe that charging people different amounts for the same item was immoral, so they started using price tags at their stores to counter the ills of haggling. And, as this short video from NPR's Planet Money explains, by taking a moral stand, the Quakers inadvertently revealed an inefficiency in the old economic system and became improbable pricing pioneers, changing commerce and history with one simple innovation.

Comments

Re: Immoral?

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll, you outed yourself as a liar and a hater. Liar, if your income is low you are not paying 20% in taxes. At most you'll pay 7.5%+/- to social security and Medicare. You are likely in the 10-15% bracket and even t

Standard deduction for single no dependents is $6,350. Give a wage of $26,350 (to make the math simple and readily within the 35 percentile) gives a taxable income of $20,000. Of that, 10% is in the lowest income bracket for $932.50 + 15% for the rest for $204.00, or $1,136.50 Federal income tax. Add 10% State income tax, 3% local income tax, and your mentioned 7.5% Social Security/Medicare, and you've got a tax rate of ~21.6%.

A hater because weathly people aren't necessarily motivated by greed. Perhaps they just want to provide for their families.

No, they're motivated by greed--because it doesn't take $250,000 to support a family--and the competitiveness of being best--or at least fucking over everyone else they're competing against.

A third thing is that you are in fact lazy because you think it takes 80 hours a week to be rich. It doesn't.

Does it necessarily take 80 hours a week to become rich? No. Does becoming rich necessarily mean being willing to work 80 hours a week? Yes. Unless you've got a shit definition of "rich".