Retailer sovereignty

Yesterday I found myself reflecting on that monstrous half-truth, consumer sovereignty. It’s a half truth because the places where consumers do their consuming are also sovereign. (I seem to recall the late Murray Rothbard having some good things to say about “The Myth of Consumer Sovereignty” in Chapter 7, I think it is, of Man, Economy and State). Shops can also do things as they wish, and if you don’t like this then ultimately your only course may be to run away. I don’t favour shop sovereignty extending to the point where they can bolt the door while you’re still there and force you to do things their way, take back what you just said, buy things you don’t want, and so forth. But short of that I like the occasional shop where the constomer has to walk on egg shells to avoid a proprietorial tantrum or to avoid knocking huge tottering piles of random items all over the grubby floor.

Sure, there must be proper shops where the customer is always right and which are helpful, clean, efficient, full of good stuff well displayed and reasonably priced, etc. etc. But not all shops should be like this.

There used to be a wonderful place in Dover Street, just off Seven Dials (a bit to the north of Covent Garden tube station), which was crammed to the ceiling with hardware of every kind you could possibly want or imagine, provided it could be found.

I remember three things in particular about this place, aside from the general mess and dirt and confusion and lack of walking space.

First, the front window was literally a rubbish dump. There it was, displaying a kind of archaeological system of sediments from previous eras of the shop’s history. Nails from the late nineteen fifties, drill bit sets from the early sixties, crushed cardboard boxes, rolls of insulating material, bags full of obscure and complicated joinery items, long discontinued workbench kits, and of course inch upon inch of genuine actual rubbish. All this could be clearly enjoyed through the front window of the shop. Second, prominently displayed on the desk from behind which the Angry Dwarf boss of the place in his dirty string vest would insult to their faces – and complain behind their backs about – his dwindling band of loyal and hardworking customers, there was a large spike about three foot in height, upon which were impaled many dozens of unopened brown envelopes from the Inland Revenue.

And third, I particularly remember the following piece of dialogue I once had with the Angry Dwarf himself.

Me: Could I please have some of these nails, if that’s alright?

Angry Dwarf: How many do you want? (Imagine all this said in a voice like an ancient NHS dentist’s drill.)

Me: How much do the nails cost?

Angry Dwarf: Never mind that, how many do you want?

Me: Well, how many I want depends on what they cost.

Angry Dwarf: No it doesn’t.

Nothing like total inelasticity of demand is there? Makes life so much easier for people selling things. But I loved the place. It still sold nails and screws by shovelling them out by the spoonful into plain brown bags, or in little cardboard boxes, instead of in horribly overpriced see-through plastic packets each containing not nearly enough.

My general point here is that part of what I love about London is that it abounds in places like this, as do all proper cities I believe. I visited two such establishments only yesterday, one selling clothing, and the other, just recently opened, selling classical CDs.

The clothes shop has a dimly lit clothes-crammed basement which looks as if everything in it has been stolen, but which is actually the lower sales floor. I bought a rather good jacket for somewhat more than I had wanted to pay, basically because I was frightened of what might be said if I had decided not to buy it. I was cornered in the scary basement when I made my decision.

I also yesterday visited what I took to be a recently opened second hand classical CD shop. Up the road, in Gramex (which really is a second hand classical CD shop, and this fine establishment also has its share of charming eccentricities) the Gramex boss (who looks a bit scary himself but is actually very nice) told me that their newly opened rival actually sells new CDs, but that these CDs all look second hand because of how long the owner/boss has had them in stock and how he treats them and labels them and prices them and displays them. But apparently if you actually say that they must be second-hand, to the owner, just by way of making conversation, he goes completely ballistic and chases you out of his shop. There’s another second hand CDs and videos shop in Soho which also used to have a tremendously rude boss, but recently he has become more polite. I don’t know why. It spoils things somehow.

Perhaps the reason I am so fond of these chaotic palaces of retailer sovereignty is that I once used to work in a place rather like this myself, the Alternative Bookshop in Covent Garden (a walk away from the lair of the Angry Dwarf), until this shop had to close, as all such places must eventually. This was a libertarian outreach operation which some people still remember with fondness. Chris Tame of the Libertarian Alliance ran the place, and I used to help him, by quarrelling with the customers about the finer points of political and philosophical theory and by refusing to sell them books which I didn’t think appropriate for them, recommending instead other titles which we didn’t have in stock, but which they could probably obtain copies of in the Economist’s Bookshop.

There are of course no links I can offer to any shops of this sort. You wouldn’t dare even to ask. “Website, what do I need a website for?, it’s nothing but bloody internet these days, load of bollocks, get out of here you wanker …”

Although, the matter of links excepted, it occurs to me that many blogs also radiate this sort of pleasingly individual atmosphere.