- .~. ~ - ' ~- $ ~~,"..<:"-.~ 8 PaRe 4 RAIN April 1979 Passing On Packages have been arriving in our mail box lately, continuing an age-old custom. They've contained a hodge-podge of new and used baby clothes-some wel1 used and handed on from birth to birth, others special keepsakes handed down for several generations and stored away till needed. Some things have been new-bought, crisp and bright, some hand-made by friends and grandmothers who knew of special needs and loves. We know of people who buy such things al1 new. At one time we would have been more incline<j. that way ourselves. But the patient love that some forgotten grandmother several generations ago put into a tiny lace col1ar wouldn't be there. And the special pleasures of thinking of the friend who made a quilt or crocheted a crazy hat, or of having baby clothes made from remnants left over from your own favorite high school shirt can't be bought in any store at any price: This simple and ancient custom of passing on is much more than a wise and welcome frugality. It's a part of our economics where people do matter- one of the parts that never make the slightest blip in our GNP but which make much welcomed gifts to our hearts and lives. Our money economy is wel1 and intentional1y designed so that people don't matter. Jobs are designed so that people are easily replaceable and therefore less valuable and lower paid. Goods are designed to be disposable, and along with them we dispose of some of the self-respect of the people who worked to make them. Products are designed and packaged to prevent a buyer from finding out the durability or details of construction or operation. Products are merchandised at fixed prices so salespeople and buyers cannot exercise and develop judgement of what is an appropriate price for a given situation. Yet the merchandiser is free to scoot the prices up or down to lure or soak the buyer. Little is said about other parts of our economy where people do matter-there's no profit to be made in promoting someone else's self-reliance. But passing things on, auctions, barter, helping out friends, self-reliance, and household eco nomics aU have an increasingly important role to play in our future. For that future has to both maintain itself within shrinking resource limits and at the same time to restore the sense of human and natural dignity, of belonging, and of psy chological and spiritual reward of life that has been destroyed by our industrial economic culture. Haggling The necessity of people-economics may lie in the future, but its benefits are available now and being sought by more and more people as the novelty of our supermarket culture dissolves into a bitter aftertaste of exploitation. Just one step away from the new car showroom is the used car lot, beyond the edge of the safe and standardized world and into a fluid Eeonomies Where and ever-changing'world whose rewards require an expenditure of your personal energy. You're on your own! Buying and selling used things-cars, clothes, houses or whateverrequires more knowledge and gambling to participate in, but also offers greater returns for that risk and effort. Five years ago, when we moved to Oregon, we bought a used stove for $50. We were novices to the world of used goods, and didn't know if we were being taken, but it was worth the risk for the time we needed it. After our fire we went back to the same place, because by then we knew they'd been fair and honest. They didn't have any stoves of the kind we wanted, but told us we real1y couldn't go too wrong with any used stove we could find-they work or they don't, and they're easy to fix. When we final1y found one, the guy wanted $40 for it but didn't have any place to plug it in to see if it worked. We knew by then that the price was great if it worked, and probably fair if it needed fixing. When we got it home and plugged it in, sparks flew everywhere, but the problem boiled down to one broken wire and less than an hour to fix. Cheap new stoves cost nearly $200, so we ended up with a better product, saved about 75 percent of the cost, and learned how to repair a stove- a good return for asking a few questions and taking a small gamble. Second hand stores, auctions, used car lots, classified ads, friends, and haggling prices are all a different kind of economics than Sneers or Pay-More. Price depends on what you know and don't know, how you and the other person feel towards each other, how much others are wil1ing to pay, what you really want it for, and how much wool can be pulled over the other person's eyes. Do a little homework-check prices in the classifieds, look up new prices in the Sears Catalog. Talk to a repair person. Get a feel for the market. It takes a little more time and asking the right questions. It develops a good eye for people. One of my first lessons in barter when you can't even speak or read the language came from a fellow-traveler in Istanbul when we were buying food from the market vendors. Stand back and watch the coins. See what the locals are paying for what, even if you don't know the language. The second lesson- don't insult the scller or the merchandise if you don't know what you're talking about. The bluff is obvious, insulting and infuriating. Just say you aren't willing to spend that much money for that merchandise, and make a counterE .:! -.:Jc: ~I~E E .§ Tom Bender People DO Matter
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