Do You Rob The Poor To Enrich The Rich?

As a little boy of under 6 years, I witnessed for the first time what a supermarket looks like. My immediate elder brother and I had walked into the newly opened Onyekwelu Supermarket along St. John Cross, Odoakpu, Onitsha. We had no business going in there, no purchase to make, just childhood curiosity. The workers at the mall seemed not bothered by our intrusion either.

The hall was pleasurably chilled as the smooth humming sounds of air conditioners combined with sweet smell of air fresheners to create a pleasantly exotic atmosphere. Goods of various shapes and uses, including toys that naturally caught our fancy as children, were neatly laid out on shelves at all corners. I had never seen such a sight before. I was profoundly thrilled.

When, therefore, on one occasion, I heard from someone that in supermarkets one cannot haggle, I was not surprised given the “uniqueness” of what has become known to me as supermarkets. In other words, it made sense to me that one does not go to such a “prestigious” place to exhibit their poverty; you buy things at prices given, you do not negotiate for any lower price, the prices are unchangeably fixed, you cannot beat them down.

However, it took many years after for me to become intellectually sophisticated enough to understand the full implication of this culture. I have now come to understand it to be one of the major symptoms of the economic injustice characterising our modern society where the rich is aided to become richer and the poor is held back from escaping poverty.

Otherwise there’s no sense in a culture that forbids haggling in the wealthy man’s supermarket and legitimises same in the small shop or stall of a poor man. In fact, this culture makes haggling a rule that must be kept when purchasing from that poor seller of groundnuts, mangoes, oranges, onions, and other goods. Not attempting to beat down the prices is taking as a mark of lack of smartness or even wisdom. On the contrary, haggling while purchasing at big malls will be seen as being uncivilised.

I have several times seen individuals blamed for allowing themselves to be cheated or for being wasteful because they didn’t haggle “well” enough to beat down prices to a certain level. In making such judgments, nobody seems to pay attention to the fact that the real cheating comes from the big supermarkets and malls that give us no option of price negotiation, thus foisting on us a take-it-or-leave-it type of transaction. Nobody seems to give thought to the truth that no greater wastage exists than giving more to the already rich while depriving the poor; paying the rich whatever he asks for but ensuring that the poor always gets less than what he asks for.

This lopsided economic morality has so much permeated our psyche and behavioural pattern that we do not see it for the anomaly that it is. To use the language of the social sciences, it has become so much naturalised (i.e. made to appear natural) that we take it as given and not to be questioned. It has become one of the taken-for-granted assumptions that define our everyday life. Hence, one would require some deep thinking to see through the realities of these assumptions.

This amoral culture is the only way to explain a situation whereby one who is rich enough to pay N5, 000 for a small plate of rice and an overly spiced piece of chicken but cannot buy N500-a-plate rice from that “mama put” without stubbornly complaining that “this rice is too small, add more,” “please change this meat, it’s just bone,” “put more stew please” etc. Instructively, none of these words will usually be directed to that “corporate” server at McDonald’s, Mr Bigg’s, and Chicken Republic where quantities and prices have been “standardised” such that one who seeks to alter these “standards” will be exposing self as being short in civilised conduct.

Asking the questions “who made these rules? Who created these standards?” will be the first crucial step towards discarding the morally lopsided mindset imposed on us through the socialisation we underwent (and still undergoing) in our capitalist society. It is the first decisive step towards exposing the unjust and hypocritical foundations of our economic institutions and practice. I can, in all modesty, say that I have attained this level of consciousness. I do not ordinarily haggle when I purchase from these petty traders. I pay them the price they offer in the same way I pay the rich owner of the big mall.

I have felt bad in many occasions where I have seen poor women selling fruits in the market, and while it was getting late, they brought down their prices, perhaps as low as the cost price, and yet buyers, who have seen the unusually low prices, still felt okay performing the usual “ritual” of haggling. If this is not taking advantage of the poor, then someone may have to help me with a crash programme to brush up my knowledge of the English language.

In one unforgettable instance, I was riding with a friend of mine in his car and we arrived at a junction where he wanted to buy something. As night descended and rain was about to fall, pear sellers were anxiously bringing down their prices so low, as this fruit would become useless if not sold that night. Yet this friend of mine was not impressed by the ridiculously low price; he wanted it to come down to his own terms. I quickly called his attention to the implication of what he was doing and he instantly realised himself and dropped the note he was holding with the seller and asked her to keep the change. It was much more than what the selling price should be in normal circumstances. This young man showed he has conscience after all; it merely needed to be redirected. What we call conscience is, to a large extent, a creation of socialisation, a product of training. Sometimes it becomes wrongly trained.and needs redirection.

Let’s redirect our conscience so as to stop robbing the poor to pay the rich.

This is my meditation this midweek.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.