The Just Price

I spent my usual lovely summer holiday at Clissett Wood - making another chair of which I am irrationally proud. Nothing beats working with your bare hands and spending time in a woodland living with a community of people far from the reach of the internet. It is equally valuable to learn something about craft, and to admire those who make their living from wood. You can find something about the skills involved, and browse the beautiful products, at the blog of the Green Woodwoman.

During the many peaceful hours we talked about the difficulty of making a livelihood in competition with Chinese children or factory machines. We waxed nostalgic about the role of Medieval guilds in protecting their crafts and their craftspeople. We have launched an idea about reviving the idea of the Just Price, which was enforced by medieval craft guilds. Some of the woodworkers showing their wares at the H.art festival have agreed to sell according to a double pricing system. Here is the text we agreed to explain the reasons for this.

'Before industrialisation, prices were fixed by guilds which protected the livelihoods of craftspeople. The 'just price' reflected their skill, the time invested and their needs. We are reviving this custom, which we see as analogous with the system of fair trade. If you earn more than the average wage - and therefore more than we do - please pay the just price.

We also list a 'bare price' which is a realistic comparison with mass-produced and imported goods. We will not sell for less than the bare price because this also prevents craftspeople from undercutting each other.

We are prepared to negotiate between these two prices on the basis of your ability to pay.'
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Moral economy takes the sting out of things

Like many, I have been mesmerised by the drama unfolding in the world's financial institutions for the past couple of weeks. In fact I must confess that the word Schadenfreude has taken on a new depth of meaning. So it was pleasant to be reminded this morning by the Bishop of Liverpool about the economy that matters: the natural economy.

He quoted the poem Providence by George Herbert and discussed how Herbert's image of the bee is a suitable one for a sustainable economy:


'Bees work for man; and yet they never bruise
Their master's flower, but leave it, having done,
As fair as ever, and as fit to use;
So both the flower doth stay, and hony run.'

This is a way of viewing resources and thinking about the economy that was commonplace before we left the land and were corrupted, mentally and physically, by capitalism.

As the new economic system spread throughout the country, and then the world, it replaced the older moral economy or the people, which had been supported by the church. According to the old ways it was a religious duty to work well and to be rewarded fairly. In the marketplace the church agreed a 'just price' and traders who exceeded this were excluded from the church and ostracised from society.

E. P. Thompson in his Making of the English Working Class describes the decades of riots that coincided with the enforcement of unjust markets in British society: 'the final years of the eighteenth century saw a last desperate efort by the people to reimpose the older moral economy as against the economy of the free market.' (p. 73)

Working people took direct action, removing the grain and flour from stores and mills, taking it to the market, and selling it themselves for 'the popular price'. They then took the money earned (and even in one case the flour sacks) back to the rightful owners. They were challenging not the right to ownership but the sin of profiteering; they were enforcing what had long been recognised as a moral economy against the immoral market economy that was being imposed.

As the institutions of capitalism totter we need to challenge its supporting ideology. Our ancestors mocked the laws of supply and demand and punished those who charged people more just because they had bought up supplies in advance, or held them back to watch prices increase. We can only guess what they would had had to say about the commodity futures market. Tweet

It's the Energy Stupid!

In spite of evidence that UK consumers bought less stuff in the last statistical quarter (only 0.1% less stuff, but in view of recent trends the slowing down is still notable), the reduced incomes resulting from economic slowdown and the disappearance of cheap money is likely to make people respond more strongly to prices when making the spending decisions.

This is a shame. Capitalist economics has trained us to use price as the most important factor in making decisions. If we look at just one market, the food market, we see the consequences of this. Until recently we may have been able to buy ever more food for ever less money but the food has been of frankly shit quality.

The predominance of price in market decisions is an indication and a reinforcement of the fact that, as capitalism grinds on to its miserable nadir, money becomes the only thing of importance. Everything else is sacrified to money—quality, happiness, health and so on. In a market where money is set up as god, both producers and consumers lose out. Those who win are those who control the money.

There is something we can do about this and that is set up for ourselves another standard rather than that of money. We should create our own mental energy-tags to replace the price-tags that the market shows us. When making purchasing decisions we have to be actively enthusiastic about paying more for items that have less embodied energy.

Once you adopt this way of thinking it becomes a habit and you begin to see stuff in shops in terms of its energy content rather than its price. In this way you can begin to the shift from measuring economic life in terms of energy rather than money that sustainability requires. Tweet

The Just Price

I did a delightful piece of shopping today. I bought a mohair and wool shawl from a local trader at Nailsworth market. Ok, it was so hot that I could hardly bear to touch it, never mind try it on, but I know I will feel the benefit by October, and besides it was purple.


Having rushed back to my friends with my purchase I faced a difficult situation when Odi, who had recommended I buy it, commented on the excellent price of £5. This was the price she had been offered; I had paid £15. In fact I was prepared to offer £20.


I felt quite happy with the £15 I had paid, but realising that Odi had been offered only £5 made me ask various questions. In fact, I didn't feel I had been cheated. I felt that £15 was the right price. I wondered whether the trader had assessed the relative incomes of Odi and myself and decide the price to ask. Or whether she just thought Odi might be a better haggler--as she herself confirmed.


I never haggle. I decide what I am prepared to pay and if the price is too high I move on. If the price quoted is too low I feel a little uncomfortable but buy the thing if I want it. But I am beginning to think that haggling may be a way of balancing the needs of the buyer and the seller. So when we pay far over the odds for tat during our foreign holidays we may justify this as redistributing wealth, and the traders may have their suspicions that we have more money than sense amply confirmed.


So what is the meaning of a price in the global market? The price is fixed by all sorts of factors beyond our control and enforced by the corporate storeholder. It doesn't respond to the needs or situation of the buyer or seller, as might be enabled by haggling. And what is a bargain? Is it really any more than the exercise of their superior power by the person who has been allocated more money in the unjust global system?


In Medieval times the price of most goods was actually fixed in a pseudo-religious fashion. It was considered unGodly to charge too much for something. The guilds controlled production and they also controlled price. Most of the methods used to make money today, including buying when something is plentiful and selling when it is in shortage, or buying in one market and selling more expensively elsewhere were outlawed by the guild. If you committed these crimes or sins you were thrown out of the guild, which meant the end of your livelihood.


I know I'm going to enjoy wearing my shawl, but I'm still left wondering whether I would enjoy it more or less if I had paid £5 for it. Tweet