Ontario Premier Doug Ford lamented Thursday that grocery store prices are sky high, but nixed the idea of banning so-called surveillance pricing and slammed a pilot project for city-run grocery stores as socialist and “crazy.”
I mean I’m no capitalist, but even his argument for capitalism here is bullshit. The only world where surveillance pricing is sensible (from a free market capitalist POV) is where you make an argument for surveillance perfecting market actors’ information to achieve a better equilibrium. But that just isn’t true, because with surveillance you have perfect information on behalf of the seller but wildly imperfect knowledge and lock-in on behalf of the buyer.
I mean I’m no capitalist, but even his argument for capitalism here is bullshit. The only world where surveillance pricing is sensible (from a free market capitalist POV) is where you make an argument for surveillance perfecting market actors’ information to achieve a better equilibrium. But that just isn’t true, because with surveillance you have perfect information on behalf of the seller but wildly imperfect knowledge and lock-in on behalf of the buyer.