For a free-market lover, it’s easy to see Black Friday as the best capitalism has to offer. Several stores, competing on one day, to offer the best products at the cheapest prices? Sound like free market nirvana to me. But at the same time, like many Western experiences, the consumer “holiday” following Thanksgiving is a mixed bag of pros and cons.
The libertarian in me thinks as an economic venture, Black Friday seems like the market at its finest. Some reports say around 30 percent of annual retail sales occur between Black Friday and Christmas. Last year 101.7 million people went shopping on this day, about 25 million more than the year prior. Surprisingly, last year 29 million left their families and friends on Thanksgiving Day to go shopping. Because of all the hyped-up promotions, stores are forced to compete with one another and offer low prices on typically expensive products, like electronics and some toys, and consumers are able to purchase things at a cheaper cost than normal.
However, not only is there a more nuanced economic angle few consider — the same products that are marked down are marked up too high anyway — but there’s also the concept that waiting at Walmart for five hours to save $50 isn’t exactly the epitome of a positive cost-benefit analysis.
In addition, there is another aspect of Black Friday to consider: Greed. Every year there is always a mind-boggling story or two about people trampling one another just to get inside a store. Several years ago, a Walmart employee was killed by a greedy mob trying to enter the store. Already, there are stories of greedy consumers gone wild this year. At a store in Alabama, someone throws a shoe which hits a baby and these grown men are fighting over a toy.
Yesterday we gave thanks for the blessings in our life while surrounded by the love of family. Today we will get up at 4am to fist-fight another human being over $8 savings on a $75 child’s toy that was made by a starving orphan in a 3rd world sweatshop for $1.25. #BlackFriday
— Mike Simpson, M.D. (@DrMikeSimpson) November 24, 2017
Indeed, there is a strange dichotomy between sitting at the Thanksgiving table with family reciting what you’re thankful for — noting most people say things like family, friends, food, a home, not a $35 Lego set on clearance — then rushing to the store that night or the next day to purchase a 50-inch LED television for $179.99.
Black Friday is a lot like eating pumpkin pie. Pie itself isn’t inherently awful, but consuming a whole pie isn’t healthy. Likewise, there are some great deals on Black Friday (I bought a few myself Thanksgiving morning online, while my turkey roasted in the oven). But there’s a difference between scouting a good deal and trampling another person to death to get it. That’s inciting a base, greedy instinct that’s not only dangerous for a person but ultimately bad for society too. It’s the flip side of Ayn Rand that conservatives often ignore — Rand at her worst: “Man — every man — is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself.”
The mother in me, who is trying to steer her children away from consumerism, materialism, and greed, thinks while Black Friday might push the market toward its best self, it doesn’t encourage humanity to that same end. Like dessert on Thanksgiving, consumerism too must be kept in check or it unleashes the greedy savage in all of us.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
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