How Free became a way to Profit
Why do I feel obligated to stuff myself when I end up at an all you can eat free lunch?
In a world where nothing comes free and everything has a price, when you find something that you don't have to pay for at that moment, it feels like you have a chance to make a profit.
As a poor college student who is not planning to be less poor anytime soon, when I have the opportunity to eat my fill on someone else's dime, I do it. I eat more than my fill and then I take some home with me!
And it ALWAYS is on someone else's dime. Because food ain't free! It came from somewhere. Someone prepared it and brought it here, and they probably did it because that is their livelihood.
I relate this to the way companies and individuals have been looking at land, water, sun and many other resources, through the lens of capitalism. I think not only are companies taking what water they need from the rivers, but they are also taking extra so that they can be less-efficient, thus reducing time and effort that would have been put into efficiency.
I think about how I used to walk into fast food restaurants and grab a bunch of ketchup, utensils and napkins when I left. I almost never used all of them, but because it was "free" I figured "why not?". I realize now that many food places have done away with big bins of sauce packets and I assume this is because they see this trend to: when people see an excess of something they have access to, they tend to over-indulge.
I think back to the Native Americans. I don't think today we can even imagine the amount of game that the forests teemed with 1000 years ago. And everything I have ever read about the Native American people, is that they took no more than they needed. Of course, one can always argue about the nitty gritty of "how much is too much", but I give them the benefit of the doubt.
Today, I would like to blame the excesses of myself, the average American, and industry all over the globe on Capitalism and the idea that everything has a price.
Now that I think about it...isn't the reason that companies have sales on their products that people often buy things they don't need because they are snared by the thought of "saving" money?
