Which Is Worth More: a $6 Hamburger or a $6 Book?
That is not a trick question in the title of this post (I hope), and it is nothing at all like the question, "Which weighs more: a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?"
It was stimulated by this piece in Salon (which I noted earlier):
The correct answer to the question posed in the title of this posting is, of course, "It all depends":
He concludes,
It was stimulated by this piece in Salon (which I noted earlier):
Which is the better thing, to work in a fast-food restaurant or to work in a bookstore? I think to work in a bookstore. Because, I would say, What is better, a book or a hamburger? Who takes a hamburger home and studies it and finds after spending many days sitting in a chair with the hamburger that her life has changed a little bit, that she is suddenly, like a person waking from a dream, seeking a magical vision she found in the hamburger? Who reads a hamburger aloud to a lover? Who falls asleep cradling a hamburger lovingly in his hands? Who takes a hamburger to a radio station and presents it to the world? Who takes a stage at a cafe and says, I just made this hamburger and I want to share it with you? Who runs into a friend on the street and says, I have to tell you about this new hamburger? Who remembers 25 years later the difference a hamburger made in his life?Quite clearly the person who wrote that passage for Salon (Cary Tennis) is an elitist and an intellectual snob, willing to impose his/her preferences on others.
So I say to you, my 19-year-old friend, now that you are free to think as you choose: Think about what is valuable and what is not [Emphasis added]. Better yet, think about what would be valuable in 100 years and what would not. Think about a person visiting the museum of San Francisco in 100 years. Would he find the hamburger you served? Would he admire the culture that produced it?
... If you work at the bookstore, you will still be a number on some page of payroll expenses.
But you will be serving a higher-quality product to a more elite clientele.
The correct answer to the question posed in the title of this posting is, of course, "It all depends":
- on utility functions and consumer surplus
- on who gets to define "valuable"
He concludes,
Hamburgers don't change lives. Books do.What a pile of tripe. He should take a book to Darfur and try to trade it for a burger (or the equivalent).
Category: Books, etc., Economics, Food Posted on
Monday, February 12, 2007 at 11:11pm
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If we assume that the subjective use-value of a $6 hamburger and a $6 book are comparable if the book is read once and then discarded, the fate of many books, then the book can be considered of greater value if it is instead either sold for a second hand exchange-value or if it is retained and re-read at one or more later times.
Regards, Don
1. Part of the point I was trying to make is that just because we might pay $6 for both the book and the hamburger, there is no reason to assume they both have the same "subjective-use" value. One person might get tonnes of consumer surplus for the burger; another might get tonnes of consumer surplus from a book.In the original posting, I tried to point out why people might value a burger more than a book even if the prices of the two are the same. Of course, others might have very different subjective-use values.
2. The durable goods argument can just as easily work the opposite way. Suppose that based solely on subjective-use value I would be willing to pay no more than $3 for the book and I would be willing to pay much more than $6 for the burger. The only reason I would then be willing to pay $6 for the book is that I expect to be able to resell it for at least $3 (ignoring transaction costs) or I expect to get additional utility from re-reading the book.
I was also amused that the author asked "Who runs into a friend on the street and says, I have to tell you about this new hamburger?" Perhaps the conversation doesn't run to hamburgers specifically, but "I have to tell you about this new" restaurant, recipe, etc. is almost as commonly heard as "some weather we're having." That the author and his elite crowd don't have similar conversations is an indication that they need to stop reading about life and actually experience it. That's classic advice for any serious writer and in this case a great place to start would be venturing out into the real world for a hamburger.
I love Tom Hanna's point that elitists need to experience some different aspects of life. E.g., in Canada, both Kelsey's and A&W sell good veggie burgers. At the same time, most employees do get different amounts of utility from working different jobs (it's called "compensating variations by some people who study the economics of labour markets); given this, I can see how someone might be better off at the same wage rate working one place rather than another, depending on their preferences. In this instance, the Salon writer seems mostly to be trying to tell the person to have certain elitist tastes.
He must have read no Danielle Steel, Judith Krantz or Sydney Sheldon, if he believes that a book is always preferable to a hamburger.
So far, I haven't seen any push for the government to provide book-buying assistance programs in the same vein as the food stamp program. There's probably a pretty good reason for that. Like, maybe, public libraries...
So, to the author of the Salon article, I'd say, use your $6 bucks on supper, then go borrow a book, you snobby little twerp.