Russell Roberts’ account of this exchange with a sidewalk artist makes me feel all warm and tingly inside:
I gave him a $20. He handed me the change and said, “We’re even.”I smiled and said, on the contrary, we have a beautiful picture and you have our money to enjoy as you wish. We’re not even. We’re both better off.
It sounds horribly pedantic on paper, like an English teacher telling him he’d used ‘hopefully’ in the wrong way. But he smiled and said, you’re right.
But of course we were even in another way. We were both better off.
John Jantsch on July 20th, 2004 at 6:11 am
But you see any relationship, business transaction, sale…is about trading value, both perceived and real. Once you understand that the rest is simply semantics.
Great Blog Dane, keep it up.
Ideoblog on July 21st, 2004 at 8:44 am
Capitalism: Not a zero sum game
From Cafe Hayek comes this vignette, about the author’s transaction with a street artist: I gave him a $20. He handed me the change and said, “We’re even.” I smiled and said, on the contrary, we have a beautiful picture