Guest Post: No, Capitalism Is Not Ruining Your Christmas Market

by Bill Wirtz

Glowing Christmas lights fill the cold streets of medieval European cities with little wooden booths selling steaming hot wine and cinnamon biscuits. However, the traditional look and idyllic atmosphere seem to be threatened by the evil of modern-day capitalism. That is, at least, the common saying of visitors of these markets. But are big companies actually ruining your favorite winter experience?

All We Want for Christmas Is... Sales
Your local Christmas market is a money-making machine regardless of it selling candles or car insurance. 

Christmas market, Barcelona, 1986

First off: Christmas markets are, at least in Europe, a billion euro industry. In 2014, the largest sales were counted in Germany with almost €2.5 billion ($2.9 billion) in revenue, followed by France with €820 million ($965 million). In a more detailed analysis on Christmas markets in the UK, researchers found that in the example of the city of Manchester, an average stall at a Christmas market generated £3,500 ($4,600) per day.

They add that if you also account for the tourism factor — as large amounts of visitors are either from abroad or coming from a different city and staying overnight — you're seeing spending of £10 million ($13.3 million). Christmas markets in Brussels, Belgium, and Strasbourg, France count between 1.5 and 2 million visitors. The Christmas market on Paris' Champs-Elysées counts over 200 booths and over a staggering 15 million visitors each year.

Your local Christmas market is a money-making machine regardless of it selling candles or car insurance. Claiming that the hot wine salesman in his wooden booth isn't as interested in making a profit as Coca-Cola which is giving out free samples would mean being blinded by emotion.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Prosperity
When presented with the choice of living under socialism or free-market capitalism, even those who preach socialism choose the latter. 

The Christmas spirit is supposed to advocate for empathy and compassion, as the biblical stories describe Jesus, a poor man, who preached charity despite receiving very little of it in return. These days, most "charity" is in the hands of the government through welfare programs. The reasons to oppose the welfare state are numerous, but outside of the inefficiency and cost of government bureaucracy, both government spending on welfare and charity fail to create value.

World Bank and UN reports celebrate a global success story: between 1990 and 2008, the world cut by half the share of the world’s poor, those living on less than $1.25 a day. The United Nations also points out that 2.6 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water while the number of hungry people has declined by 20 percent in the last 20 years. 

The origin of development is, of course, the wealth created by entrepreneurs and large businesses which have not only provided jobs in areas in which there were none before but whose reduced production costs have made high-end goods accessible to all. 

Compare this to socialism, the likes of which create starvation in Venezuela and North Korea or unclean drinking water in Cuba, not to speak of the massive injustices and infractions on people's individual liberty. When presented with the choice of living under authoritarian socialism or living under free-market capitalism, even those who preach socialism choose the latter.

Who Do We Celebrate?
Next time you see a large coffee machine retailer, think of the people whose lives were made better through these companies. 

Christmas decorations, Oxford Street, London, 1986

We are aware that the success stories of free-market capitalism improving the living conditions of the poorest of the poor through reducing living costs and improving access to quality good and services. However, they fail to be the ones who are actually celebrated around Christmas for providing these essential opportunities to people. We worship those who give handouts to the poor, but we hold those who enable poor people to rise and improve their living conditions in utter disdain.

When there is a large company selling their products on a traditional Christmas market, many see a greedy company ruining the flair of the Christmas spirit. It doesn't occur to them that millions of people are able to put food on the table and buy gifts for their children: something that prior to the emergence of free-market capitalism was a privilege reserved for the very few. All it takes to see this is to think of the millions of people oppressed by socialism, like those in Venezuela, who will, this year, spend among the worst Christmas Eves they have ever witnessed.

Next time you see a large coffee machine retailer or a booth advertising cleaning products at your local Christmas market, think of the people whose lives were made better through these companies.

The greatest gifts aren't wrapped in paper, but stats about poverty reduction.





Bill Wirtz is a Young Voices Advocate. His work has been featured in several outlets, including Newsweek, Rare, RealClear, CityAM, Le Monde and Le Figaro. He also works as a Policy Analyst for the Consumer Choice Center.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Guest Post: In-store shopping still matters this holiday season

Kelli Hollinger, Texas A&M University

It surprises most millennials to learn that only about 10 percent of all retail purchases are actually made online. Each semester, when I ask hundreds of undergraduate business students to estimate, they consistently guess that between a quarter and half of all retail spending happens on the internet. But this holiday shopping season, as ever in the past, the overwhelming majority of purchases will still happen within four physical walls of a store.

This should encourage the thousands of retailers anchored in strip malls, lifestyle centers and mixed use developments. The National Retail Federation expects holiday retail sales – not counting car, gas and restaurant purchases – in November and December this year to increase up to 4 percent over last year, to as much as US$682 billion.

Stores will need the money in order to avoid being added to 2017’s record-breaking roster of retail bankruptcies, store closures and layoffs, which included landmark brands like Toys R Us and RadioShack.

A reason to visit

Traditional retailers must give consumers good reasons to visit their stores, beyond product selection and good value. Joe Pine and James Gilmore’s 1999 book “The Experience Economy” foretold how savvy companies, like Apple and American Girl, excel by staging compelling experiences that teach, entertain or inspire customers.

The main asset of a physical store in a digital world is human staffing. Even if a shopper doesn’t want help, a smile acknowledging his or her presence encourages connection. Front-line employees can ask customers about their kids, in-laws or Thanksgiving meal planning. That can lead to an authentic personal connection through which employees can discover a shopper’s unique wants and respond with products on the shelves, or ordered and shipped for free to the customer’s home. An in-person encounter can become a seamless blend of the online and physical worlds.

Even Walmart, America’s largest retailer, is moving to a more experiential model. In hopes of boosting sales, its 4,700 stores will host 20,000 parties with Santa before the New Year. Customers will be able to take pictures, test out toys and get tots excited.

The company has another advantage over online sellers, too: nine in 10 Americans live within 15 minutes of a Walmart store. A thousand Walmarts now let customers drive up to the storefront to pick up online grocery orders the same day they’re purchased, at no additional charge. That rivals Amazon’s Fresh grocery service, which comes at an extra cost and often doesn’t deliver until the next day.

Emotional connection in a digital age

Holiday shoppers (c) Rick Sincere 2013

Beyond face-to-face service, successful companies today must develop a deeper connection with their customers, whether online or off. Store-based retailers can show their values in ways that at times can take on a very personal meaning for shoppers and store owners alike. I have been a loyal customer of Gallery Furniture in Houston for years. Owner Jim McIngvale, known as “Mattress Mack,” is a marketing maverick known for his decades of zany TV commercials pledging to “Save you money!”

After the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, he opened his stores to anyone in need of a place to stay. Some came by boat, with only the clothes they were wearing. McIngvale welcomed thousands of Houstonians to sleep on his inventory of mattresses. He sheltered, fed and prayed for flood victims.

On Halloween, McIngvale flew 50 first responders to Game 6 of the World Series in Los Angeles, giving those lucky Astros fans a once-in-a-lifetime experience and emotional lift in the wake of natural disaster.

Like other retailers gearing up for the holidays, Gallery Furniture is promoting “monster sales.” But with the floodwaters gone and the Astros crowned as baseball’s world champions, McIngvale’s community spirit seems to have positioned his chain as more than a brand, destination or store. Beyond capturing market share, Gallery Furniture may have an advantage in customer sentiment.

Best Buy is buzzing again

Community involvement isn’t the only way retailers can regain strength. National electronics chain Best Buy has ridden a roller coaster over the last 20 years: In 2004 it was recognized by Forbes magazine as “Company of the Year.” By 2012 it was dismissed as a real-world showroom for cheaper online retailers. In August 2017, though, its stock price hit an all-time high.

As Amazon grew, Best Buy defended itself, becoming a top 10 retailer in sales by matching competitors’ prices and investing in personal services like Geek Squad. The company also trained workers to help customers understand technology: Product descriptions can list a camera’s functions, but a knowledgeable employee can explain how it works with lenses, editing software or with other devices. That allows the company to take advantage of the ever-increasing number of tech-connected items in smart homes, from Nest thermostats to 4K TVs – which require more instruction to set up and operate than their analog predecessors.

In the face of online competition, brick-and-mortar retailers must give consumers unique in-store experiences that build emotional connections with shoppers. Black Friday promos on toasters or iPads won’t cut it. They have to provide heartfelt feelings like surprise, delight and excitement – and actual help and useful advice. Shopping on a couch via a mobile app is efficient, but a store can be magical and memory-making.

Kelli Hollinger, Director, Center for Retailing Studies; Lecturer of Marketing, Texas A&M University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Guest Post: Economic Localism Is No Better than Economic Nationalism

The best path toward enriching everyone is allowing everyone to trade with everyone else.

by Steven Horwitz

As Black Friday has continued to expand in recent years, one response to its orgy of discounts and deals has been to promote the following day as “Small Business Saturday.” The idea is to encourage people to shop at their local stores rather than at national chains or big-box stores, or perhaps on the Internet. Doing so, argue its proponents, is both moral and good for the local economy, as it keeps jobs and money in “our communities” rather than, presumably, in the hands of faceless and distant corporate masters.

Let’s ignore the irony that the sponsor of this movement is the international corporation known as American Express. Is there a moral or economic case for shopping local, whether on the Saturday after Thanksgiving or in general?

There is not. Many of the same arguments made by progressives in favor of shopping local are the same as those made by Trump and his supporters in favor of what they call “economic nationalism.” For the same reasons that shopping local isn’t morally or economically superior to buying from chains and big boxes, neither is buying “Made in the USA.” The most moral and economic choice is to buy from whomever you want based on your preferences about price, service, or any other number of factors.

Big Boxes Employ Locally
If we only shopped from locally-owned businesses, we would be paying higher prices and overall employment and incomes would be lower.  The moral and economic cases against buying local are intertwined. Consider the argument that buying local is better because buying from Walmart or Target doesn’t keep money and jobs in the local community. This argument ignores that the average Walmart Supercenter employs around 400 people and the numbers are similar for Target. Those jobs continue to exist because people shop at those stores. The hundreds employed at any given big box store are just as much members of the local community as are the owners of the small business that compete with the big boxes. 

To the extent that the prices at the big box stores are cheaper, they enable those who shop there to have income left over to spend on other goods and services, including things from locally-owned businesses, creating jobs that would not exist otherwise. If we only shopped from locally-owned businesses, we would be paying higher prices and overall employment and incomes would be lower. Plus, consumers would not have access to the variety of goods available at chain and big box stores, forcing them to not only spend more but get less value for it.

Buy National?
The same logic applies to international trade. Those imploring us to “buy local” are falling for the same sorts of fallacies that Trump, and many who voted for him, implicitly accept when they argue for raising barriers to international trade. “Economic localism” is nothing more than a smaller scale version of the “economic nationalism” of Steve Bannon and other Trump advisors.

Increasing duties on imports, thereby forcing more Americans to buy “local” in terms of the global economy, does nothing to create jobs or improve the economic standing of Americans. “Keeping the money in the USA,” like “keeping the money in the community,” harms those it is intended to help, and does so for the same reasons.

Forcing Americans to buy only, or predominantly, American-made products means we will spend more to get less, and the net effect on jobs will be zero at best. Globalized trade certainly shifts the mix of jobs in the US economy, as we have shifted in relative terms from manufacturing to hi-tech or services for example, but does not reduce the total number of jobs. One need only look at the data on overall job growth, and the increased variety of cheaper and better goods available to even the poorest Americans, over the last 30 years to see this.

The moral case for buying local is similarly weak. It’s best seen by making the moral case for buying globally.

The promoters of buying local often argue that buying from international corporations is problematic because so many of their products are bought from China or other parts of the world where wages are low and working conditions are bad. The belief is that by buying from those firms, consumers are supporting the exploitation of workers in those countries, making such purchases morally questionable.

Here is where the economics entangles with the morality: large firms are morally suspect because of the supposed negative economic effects they create. But are those negative economic effects real? Without an extended discussion of so-called “sweatshops” (but do see Ben Powell’s excellent book), two quick points are in order.

How Wages Rise
That Chinese workers have factory jobs that pay as well as they do, compared to the other options available to them, is a result of firms like Walmart buying the products those factories create. Wages depend on the productivity of workers (and the capital they use) along with the value of what they create. When the demand for those Chinese products goes up, thanks to us buying at Walmart, wages for the workers in those factories rise. And the evidence is clear that rising wages and the pressure of large Western firms are key drivers of improved working conditions.

Buying Chinese made products at Walmart not only doesn’t further exploit Chinese workers; it is of positive help to them.

Geography and Morality

It is not clear why people more near to us geographically should have moral weight than those further away. Given the choice between helping a middle-class small businesswoman in our neighborhood or increasing the chances of better employment at a higher wage for much poorer men and women in China, why should we believe that the former is necessarily morally superior? 

If human beings deserve our moral consideration by virtue of their humanity, and if those who are worse off economically are deserving of more such consideration, then it would seem that if there is a moral case for anything, it’s for buying in ways that help the least well-off, regardless of their nationality or ethnicity.

Certainly most of the progressive proponents of shopping local do not imagine themselves to be guilty of the same prejudices as Steve Bannon and other partisans of Trump’s economic nationalism, but the underlying logic is the same. The best path toward enriching everyone is allowing everyone to trade with everyone else.

Buy Wherever
To be clear, my argument is not that buying local is somehow wrong. It’s not. But it’s also not morally or economically superior to buying from Walmart or Target or even Amazon. Many local businesses offer better products or superior service, or perhaps fill a unique niche that large stores cannot. They also provide better opportunities to socialize with friends and neighbors. Those are all good reasons to buy from local businesses.

But don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are somehow benefiting your local economy or doing something that’s morally superior. You’re just doing what globalized markets with a range of alternatives allow you to do: deciding what elements of your economic activity matter to you and choosing accordingly. Restricting those alternatives, whether through well-intentioned progressive “economic localism” or the darker, reactionary forces of “economic nationalism,” harms people, and often those who can ill-afford worsening poverty.

Steven Horwitz is the Schnatter Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise in the Department of Economics at Ball State University, where he also is a Fellow at the John H. Schnatter Institute for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise. He is the author of Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions. and is a Distinguished Fellow at FEE and a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Guest Post: Why Black Friday leads shoppers to behave badly

Jaeha Lee, North Dakota State University

The manic nature of Black Friday has at times led shoppers to engage in fistfights and other misbehavior in their desperation to snatch up the last ultra-discounted television, computer or pair of pants.

What is it about the day after Thanksgiving – a day meant to celebrate togetherness and shared feasting – that inspires consumers to misbehave?

Fellow researchers Sharron Lennon, Minjeong Kim, Kim Johnson and I have in recent years been exploring the causes of consumer misbehavior on Black Friday, historically one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Our latest research shows how our emotions affect our likelihood to misbehave, as well as a significant difference between men and women.

A fight breaks out in a Walmart in 2016.

Black Friday mayhem

The term “Black Friday” first appeared in the journal Factory Management and Maintenance in 1951. It signals the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, when many retailers finally go “in the black” – that is, they become profitable for the year.

More recently, Black Friday has become a setting for consumer misbehavior as shoppers compete for deeply discounted products. Fighting, pepper-spraying, dumping merchandise, ransacking stores, robberies and shootings have all been reported on Black Friday. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has even issued guidelines to retailers about how to avoid injuries and deaths.

In the U.S., the most shocking example of misbehavior occurred in 2008 when a Walmart worker was trampled and killed as shoppers rushed to enter the store.

So what causes some consumers to behave so badly?

It starts with the unique characteristics of Black Friday sales promotions and the frantic retail environment they create. Retailers heavily promote their most desirable items at deeply discounted prices in order to encourage more foot traffic. Demand for those precious few items naturally exceeds supply. That imbalance can lead to aggressive consumer behavior.

But another key ingredient is sleep deprivation, which results from the very timing of the sales, which may begin at midnight or early in the morning and require eager customers to camp outside a store all night. That means many Black Friday shoppers aren’t functioning at their best, resulting in grumpy moods and bad decisions.

Impact of crowded stores

Research my colleagues and I conducted in 2014 examined how two situational variables – large crowds and the rude, argumentative behavior of fellow shopper – affected the likelihood that otherwise jovial consumers would become Black Friday miscreants.

We created a questionnaire based on past research of the topic and asked several hundred students at four universities located in different regions of the country to fill them out. We analyzed only results from the 260 participants who reported to have shopped on Black Friday in the past and completed the survey.

On the whole, we found the large crowds that congregate on Black Friday actually had positive effects on consumer behavior, reducing dissatisfaction and aggression and thus errant activity as well. That is, as long as the shoppers were expecting to have to navigate very crowded stores.

All it takes is one bad seed, however, to ruin the experience for others. Being unable to purchase the advertised product seems unfair, leading to misbehavior and in turn making others more likely to follow suit.

Since an expectation of crowds seemed to make it less likely that shoppers would perceive inequities, posting signs at entrances or in advertisements reminding shoppers to bear with Black Friday’s crowded conditions may help keep customers civil.

Emotional shoppers

In our latest study, published in June, we examined how our emotions and personality traits influence consumers and whether there are differences between women and men.

Black Friday, Northern Virginia, 2013 (c) Rick Sincere

We designed an online survey in which participants – 411 students who indicated they had previously shopped on Black Friday – were randomly assigned to read one of three scenarios involving a customer trying to buy a discounted item the day after Thanksgiving.

In two of the scenarios, the customer went home empty-handed after not being able to make a desired purchase, either because the retailer ran out of the product or because the promotion had ended. In the third one, the participant read about a customer who managed to successfully snare the desired product – either a smartphone or clothing – at the greatly reduced price.

After reading the assigned scenario, participants completed a series of scales that assessed their emotions such as anger and thrill, their personality traits and their likelihood to misbehave on Black Friday.

Our findings showed that participants – both men and women – who had an emotional response to the scenarios, whether negative or positive, were more likely to be willing to engage in consumer misbehavior.

As for differences between the sexes, we found that men’s capacity for self-control was the primary trait that determined whether they were likely to behave badly on Black Friday.

In other words, possessing more self-control mitigated any anger that might lead to misbehavior. For women, self-control was irrelevant. What mattered for them was public self-consciousness – that is, how others viewed them. And surprisingly, women deemed to have a high degree of public self-consciousness were more likely to misbehave if they got angry.

Battle of the fittest

Black Friday creates a competitive environment since not all shoppers can get what they want. Thus, this competitive environment causes both positive and negative emotions. Consumers are thrilled when they get what they want and frustrated when they do not.

For retailers, Black Friday is meant explicitly to attract these large crowds in hopes of ringing in more sales. But besides leading to minor misbehavior, more people jostling over a small number of deeply discounted items can also lead to injuries or even wrongful death lawsuits. Retailers need to balance making more money and the safety of their customers and workers.

In general, reducing the number of unpleasant customers would improve the shopping experience for other shoppers as well as for store employees. Rather than ignoring or accommodating such shoppers, retailers should be proactive by clearly communicating store policies and quickly reacting to signs of aggression by removing the bad actors. Other steps retailers could take include adding checkout lanes to speed up traffic and putting more employees on the sales floor to improve responsiveness to shopper concerns.

Ultimately, customers are responsible for their own behavior. When shoppers behave responsibly, the Black Friday experience isn’t spoiled for their fellow customers and everyone is able to buy their digital goods and clothes in a safe and relatively stress-free environment.

This article incorporates elements of a piece written by the same author and published on Nov. 28, 2014.

Jaeha Lee, Associate Professor of Apparel, Design and Hospitality Management, North Dakota State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

From the Archives: Interview with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell on ABC privatization - Part 1

Examiner.com exclusive: Interview with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell on ABC privatization - Part 1
August 8, 2010 2:34 AM MST

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell proposed during his 2009 election campaign that the Commonwealth should end the government’s monopoly on the wholesale and retail sales of distilled spirits, with the intention of raising millions of dollars that would be applied to transportation needs.

While this proposal was not acted upon during the 2010 session of the General Assembly, this summer the governor began floating ideas about how privatization of the ABC system could be implemented. McDonnell sees privatizing liquor sales as part of a broad-based government reform program.

Town Hall Meetings
McDonnell hosted the first of eight town hall meetings on government reform in Roanoke on August 4. Prior to the meeting, McDonnell sat down with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner for a one-on-one, exclusive interview on the topic of ABC privatization.

Bob McDonnell

The first question posed to McDonnell referred to the fact that other so-called “control” states – states where liquor, and sometimes beer and wine as well, is sold through state-owned stores and wholesale operations – are considering a transition to a free market system. These include Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Washington.

What has the McDonnell administration learned from government leaders from these other states?

“Our team has been working for four or five months,” McDonnell said, “talking to legislators, talking to people in the industry, looking at the best practices from other states, to try to find out what’s the best model for us to use in Virginia.”

Citing the historical context, McDonnell noted that “since Prohibition was repealed almost 80 years ago, 32 states have adopted a private system of distribution of alcohol. Only 18 states,” he said, including Virginia, are left with the control system.

Learning ‘what’s right for Virginia’
He said specifically that while “we’ve got some things we’ve learned about from other states,” he has “not talked to other governors,” instead looking at other states’ “experience and trying to find what’s right for Virginia.”

Returning to his theme about general government reform, McDonnell insisted that ABC privatization “is one of hundreds of issues that we hope to address in a government reform special session” of the General Assembly.

The ABC question, he admitted, “is one that’s got a little bit more of a profile because it’s a fairly significant, systematic change we think will generate maybe half a billion dollars for transportation, which is something we need.”

‘A win-win’
Moreover, he added, “it’s getting the government out of the business of alcohol distribution, which I don’t think it needs to be in. We’ve [sold] beer and wine [privately] for 70 years; we can certainly do distilled spirits” in the same way.

McDonnell argued that privatization is “a win-win,” because it gets “the private sector making economies of scale and, I think, it’s the right thing to do.”

Governor McDonnell’s interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner will be continued in Part 2. See the attached video for a complete recording of the conversation.

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 8, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Virginia’s school supplies ‘tax-free holiday’ more complicated than necessary

Virginia’s school supplies ‘tax-free holiday’ more complicated than necessary
August 4, 2011 11:34 PM MST

From 12:01 a.m. on Friday, August 5, through midnight on Sunday, August 7, shoppers in Virginia will be able to enjoy a sales tax holiday on a limited number of items. The tax holiday’s goal is to ease some of the burden on families with children who are purchasing school supplies in anticipation of the coming academic year.

The first tax-free school shopping holiday took place in August 2006 and has been repeated each year since then.

Shoppers save $4.3 million

Governor Bob McDonnell explained in a statement released by his office:

“Returning to class is an exciting time for students, but it can also be a stressful time for their parents. Saving 5 percent on their purchases is not a great deal, but every bit helps in this struggling economy. I urge all Virginians to go out and save money, while supporting our retail community.”

The governor’s office estimated that this year’s tax-free holiday will save Virginia shoppers $4.3 million in sales taxes that they would otherwise pay.

Delegate Rob Bell (R-58) of Albemarle County pointed out in an email to constituents that during the tax-holiday weekend, “a variety of school supplies will be tax-free as long as each item costs $20 or less. Most clothing items and footwear will also be exempt from the 5 percent sales tax as long as they are priced at $100 or less each. There is no limit on the number of items you can purchase tax-free as long as each item qualifies.”

Whatever its merits, the sales-tax holiday’s framework is far more complicated than it needs to be. The Virginia Department of Taxation provides a lengthy list of those items that are eligible and others that are ineligible for the sales tax exemption through the weekend. It would have been much simpler for the General Assembly to decree that all consumer items priced at $100 or less would be tax-exempt for the 72-hour period of the tax holiday.

Mix of inconsistencies

Instead, the list offers a higgledy-piggledy mix of inconsistencies, in which “athletic supporters” are eligible items, but “cleated or spiked athletic shoes” are not. Computers and computer peripherals (like printers) are ineligible, but “all calculators, including those with printing capabilities” are eligible for the exemption.

Some eligible items have little or no relation to school supplies: choir and altar clothing; diapers, children and adult, including disposable diapers; and wedding apparel, including veils, to name a few.

“Book bags” are tax exempt but “briefcases” and “handbags” are not. Clothing items that dancers wear -- leotards and tights -- are eligible but ballet and tap shoes are not.

The lengthy and inconsistent list should be evidence that neither the General Assembly nor the Department of Taxation has thought through all of the ramifications of the tax-free holiday.

Business logic

Retail businesses, however, have thought things through to their logical conclusion.

In years past, some stores have simply absorbed the sales taxes on items left off the official list, declaring that virtually everything on their shelves would be tax-free for the weekend.

If the government behaved as rationally as businesses, that policy would be true across the board, in 2011 and in the future.

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 29, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Guest Post: Boxing Day's journey from Pepys to shopping petitions and parliament

by Nelson Blackley, Nottingham Trent University

British members of Parliament have been debating whether shops should remain open on Boxing Day. Some 30 or 40 years years ago, shops stayed closed for longer during the holiday season – and on Boxing Day family time was the focus and leftover turkey the star of the show. But in recent years Boxing Day has fired the starting gun for the January sales, created (yet another) key moment in the British retail calendar and forced retail staff into work.

This growing commercialisation has created a backlash. In 2015, a petition on the government’s website to ban shops from opening on Boxing Day gathered a modest 27,525 signatures, but 2016 has seen the campaign gather greater momentum. Two similar petitions have been active this year. The first, also on the government’s official website, calls for all retailers to close on Boxing Day, claiming: “Some things are needed over the festive period, retail isn’t one of them.” It has received more than 140,000 signatures, easily meeting the required level of support to warrant the parliamentary debate. A similar petition on the website change.org claims has gathered more than 230,000 signatures.

So what is the historical background to Boxing Day and why are we so attached to it? Is it possible that this recent groundswell of support could begin to loosen the grip of consumerism during the Christmas break?

Pepys show

The Oxford English Dictionary claims the earliest use of the term “Boxing Day” is from 1830s England. It was “the first weekday after Christmas Day, observed as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas box”. This relates to a seasonal British custom for tradespeople to collect boxes of money or presents after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year.

This is actually linked to an even older English tradition, mentioned by Samuel Pepys’ in a diary entry from December 19, 1663, when servants of the wealthy, who would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, were allowed the next day to visit their families. Employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts, bonuses and sometimes leftover food.

Stony-faced. A statue of Samuel Pepys in London.
chrisdorney/Shutterstock

The 2016 parliamentary debate about the modern nature of Boxing Day did not involve a vote and so there will be no immediate change in the law. However it was a chance for MPs to demonstrate whether it is an issue with much parliamentary support. In response to the petitions, the government has said:

We do not believe it is for central government to tell businesses how to run their shops or how best to serve their customers. Therefore we are not proposing to ban shops from opening on Boxing Day.

Even if there is general support in Parliament, I don’t believe the UK government will amend the current trading laws and so prevent large stores from opening on Boxing Day any time soon – for several reasons.

Ker-ching

First, and most importantly, the retail sector is a critical part of the UK economy – and in fragile economic times it would be a brave government indeed that took any action that might damage it. Sales in the sector were £339 billion in 2015 (generating 5% of the UK’s GDP) and, with almost 3m working in retail, it was the UK’s largest private-sector employer.

There is also an important international dimension. The UK’s in-store sales on Boxing Day are boosted by an influx of foreign shoppers.

The second key factor reflects the radical changes seen in consumer habits as a result of online shopping, a point also acknowledged by the government in its response to previous Boxing Day petitions:

Consumers are now used to the freedom to buy what they need at any time that suits them. The government believes that all businesses should be allowed flexibility to meet their customers’ needs and offer consumers choice about when and how they want to shop. This will help drive competition, productivity and the local economy, as well as helping create jobs

Unsurprisingly, this is a view echoed by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) the trade association whose members represent 70% of the turnover of the UK retail sector.

Sacred time

That leads onto a third factor behind the government’s decision making. According to the Guardian, shoppers last year were more willing than ever to interrupt Christmas Day itself for some online bargain hunting.

Online sales in the UK on Dec 25, 2015 were the highest ever, up 21% on 2014 according to web services group PCA Predict – whose founder Jamie Turner highlighted the “convenience of being able to browse online throughout the entire Christmas period to find deals and discounts”.

However, there is one thing that seems to remain sacred. Experian and online retail trade association IMRG reported a dip in online between 1pm and 4pm on Christmas Day as families enjoyed Christmas lunch together (and perhaps even watched the Queen’s speech), then rising again in the evening as people sat down to relax and watch television.

At the heart of this debate lies the fear of missing out. For the government, for retailers and their shareholders, and for millions of bargain-hunting consumers. According to the BRC, the UK retail market is the “most competitive in the world” and in that context it becomes almost unimaginable that any large retailers would now make a voluntary decision to close on Boxing Day and so lose sales and market share to rivals.

The British boom in online shopping – the UK has the highest level of penetration in the world – has also brought with it the “click-and-collect” phenomenon. In other words, both parts of the UK retail industry work hand-in-hand – there will be millions of UK consumers who want to order products online over the Christmas holiday period and collect from a store on Boxing Day. More, you have to conclude, than the 140,000 petition signatories who long for a Christmas free from the ringing of the nation’s cash registers (or the sound of clicking on the pay now button).



Nelson Blackley, Research Associate - National Retail Research Knowledge Exchange Centre, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Guest Post: Why Lord of the Flies is the perfect Christmas gift for 2016

Matthew Whittle, University of Leeds


It’s the story of a society in which democracy descends into tribalism and tyranny. One of a civilisation built by those committed to the rule of law who turn on each other, scapegoating the marginalised and powerless. Ultimately, it’s a reminder of a human barbarism lying just beneath the fragile veneer of decency.

Sound familiar? That’s right: it’s the plot of Lord of the Flies, a novel about a group of English boys who survive a plane crash and are marooned on an island in the South Pacific. After a short period of harmony, a power struggle between the two leaders, Ralph and Jack, causes the group to split. Jack wins out by promising to hunt and kill a common enemy – the strange phantom living in the jungle known only as the Beast. It’s a successful campaign of fear and division.

Lord of the Flies was first published in 1954, largely in response to the rise of Nazism and the horrors of World War II. And yet, in many ways, it speaks directly to the world of 2016, where austerity, the refugee crisis, Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump have emboldened nationalist fervour and stoked societal fragmentation.

The racialised language of tribal “savagery” in the novel quite rightly makes contemporary readers bristle. It marks author William Golding’s failure to move beyond a fundamentally eurocentric and colonialist view of the world. But ultimately, the book’s message is that “savagery” is universal. It is not racially or nationally defined. It’s a moral that encourages us to reflect on just how far-right extremism has crept back into mainstream politics throughout Europe and America.

The far right traffics in the populist language of national allegiance to legitimate racism. America’s so-called alt-right, France’s National Front, UKIP and xenophobic Leavers in Britain all feed off dissatisfaction with globalisation to create enemies within. The solution to complex economic and political realities for these groups is as simple as hunting the Beast. Jack lives on in Trump, Le Pen, and Farage.

The voice of reason

In counterpoint to Jack’s sloganeering and scaremongering, Lord of the Flies gives us Piggy and Simon. The former is a firm believer in scientific progress, but he is also aware that human progress will be halted if “we get frightened of people”. Piggy is debilitated when the boys steal his glasses – his means of vision and clarity – and use them to start a fire. They instantly lose control of the flames, leading to the destruction of part of their new home. Rather than representing the first act of a united civilisation, the making of fire signals the disunity that splits the group and leads, finally, to Piggy’s death at the hands of Jack’s tribe.

If Piggy is “progress” then Simon is “reason”. He knows that the Beast isn’t real and is in fact borne of the boys’ own fear. “However Simon thought of the beast,” we’re told, “there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick.” Despite this insight, Simon is regarded as weak and is shunned.

After a lone expedition, he discovers that the Beast is no more than a dead airman – a casualty of the war raging far off in the distance, whose parachute has swept him onto the island. Simon returns to camp to share the news, but the boys’ imagination awakens a blind desire for blood. They no longer see a fellow human being, only a threat to their society. Simon’s screams are drowned out by the “tearing of teeth and claws”.

During his 1962 lecture tour of American universities, Golding discussed his reasons for writing Lord of the Flies:

My book was to say: you think that now the [Second World War] is over and an evil thing destroyed, you are safe because you are naturally kind and decent. But I know why the thing rose in Germany. I know it could happen in any country.

So far, so bleak. And yet, while Golding depicts humankind’s propensity for prejudice, there is a small glimmer of hope. After fleeing the manhunt ordered by Jack, Ralph encounters a uniformed naval officer whose vessel has landed after seeing the smoke rising from the scorched island. As Ralph weeps “for the end of innocence”, the officer turns around to let his eyes rest on his warship in the distance. This final image of the book is a moment of self-reflection. In the savagery and environmental catastrophe of the boys’ rudimentary civilisation, the adult world is afforded a vision of its own folly.

The moral of Lord of the Flies isn’t just that barbarity knows no borders. It’s also that it can be prevented from flourishing through the commitment to a shared humanity. “If humanity has a future on this planet of a hundred million years,” said Golding in his 1962 lecture, “it is unthinkable that it should spend those aeons in a ferment of national self-satisfaction and chauvinistic idiocies.”

The novel may not be a heart-warming Christmas tale, but it gifts us an unflinching portrayal of a society driven by fear. For readers in 2016, it remains both an urgent warning and an invocation.



Matthew Whittle, Teaching Fellow in English (Contemporary and Postcolonial), University of Leeds

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.