When nice prices go bad
The true cost of our obsession with cheapThat price tag you see in store? That's a fraction of an item's actual price. Welcome to the world of hidden costs, where 'cheap' is never quite what it seems.
Take the true cost of a cheap, cotton t-shirt from a fast-fashion brand:
True cost $10
Economists use the term 'externalities'. We think 'someone else is carrying the cost' is more accurate. Historically, that's been poor people and vulnerable communities. More recently? Think of the LA fires. The Venice floods. The cost of cheap is now banging at the global's north's door.
Each time we underpay for artificially cheap anything, we rack up yet more unimaginable debt.
What are you prepared to pay for?
Price is a powerful mechanism for driving behavior.
If prices reflected more hidden costs, how would your own buying behaviour change?
Keep doing this the next time you go to the store. Imagine what the price would be in a world where they reflect more of the cost to people and planet.
And then imagine how you would act instead.
Now with mandatory long-term software updates, repairable design, and guaranteed access to affordable spare parts.
Now paying for mining damage, toxic waste, carbon emissions, living wages, worker safety, and e-waste recycling.
Now subsidised through producer responsibility fees.
Now paying for water use, pollution, carbon emissions, soil damage, living wages, transport, waste, and end-of-life disposal.
Now subsidised for providing living soils, thriving ecosystems, replenishing water, and building resilience.
Now paying for pesticides, degrading soils, over fertilization, underpaid labour, worker safety, and overuse of fresh water.
The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse.
Let's flip the script.
Imagine a rational economy. One where sufficiency, care, health, and quality drives financial success. And where wastefulness, planned obsolescence, predatory extraction, and pollution makes zero business sense.
Think how quickly things would change.
Rewrite the rules
How could businesses reflect true costs more often? Let's experiment...
Who's attempting to level the playing field? Explore who's doing what. And ask yourself, what would your version look like?
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