Bargain hunters in France have to be fast because, regrettably, sales
in this country run just a limited time. There’s the summer sale,
generally in July, and the winter sale, generally in January. Outside
these regulated mark-down seasons, customers must usually pay the full
price.
In recent years there was an exception, and it applied to books. These
jewels of the spirit were available at very attractive prices on
Amazon.fr, which besides offering a regular 5% discount on all books
also provided free shipping on purchases over OE20. Wasn’t this a
fabulous opportunity to save money while raising one’s level of culture?
Unfortunately, the French booksellers’ association thought otherwise and
sued the Internet shop, arguing that free delivery amounted to an
illegal discount under a 1981 law governing the pricing of books. The
High Court at Versailles agreed with the complainant, ordering Amazon.fr
in December to begin charging for shipping. Unhappy with this ruling,
more than 120,000 people rushed to sign a petition for the U.S.-based
firm to preserve the free delivery of books. The company, meanwhile, is
paying OE1,000 a day in fines as it awaits the outcome of last month’s
appeal against the court’s decision.
But is it not peculiar to have to “vote” again in favor of something
that you’ve already voted for? Each time customers bought a book on
Amazon.fr, they agreed to a service exchange with the company. This is
what’s so terrific about the market: Every vote counts. In buying a
book, we are giving our agreement, just as we could refuse it by opting
for another product or a different seller. The market is governed by the
law of individual choice, and the success of Amazon.fr shows that many
customers support the company’s “candidacy.”
The political arena in democracies works differently. There, the law of
the majority prevails and we only rarely have a chance to give our views
on how we should be ruled. And even those occasional elections are
hardly satisfying. To paraphrase Nobel economics laureate Milton
Friedman, a political vote is at best one in a thousand – and you won’t
necessarily get what you voted for, but rather what 51% of voters wanted.
Nothing like this occurs in the market: Every purchase counts, as does
every refusal to purchase. That’s why, if you want the supremacy of
consumers to prevail, you have to preserve the field of action in which
they can express themselves freely. Judicial rulings like that of the
High Court at Versailles unfortunately convert the market of goods into
a political market. They require consumers to affirm again, through a
petition, an agreement they have previously made. If said petition fails,
consumers are left without any effective means of getting their voices
heard.
The free market gives consumers control over their own choices and
wallets. To keep those wallets from being emptied too quickly, we must
stop politicizing all choices in life, not least those of how to buy a
book.
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