The cobbler and the market

A man in Beni Suef mends shoes from a narrow stall under a stairwell. Someone's heel snaps on the way to work, he fixes it in ten minutes, and they walk on instead of buying a new pair.

He has made their day better. They pay him. He takes the money and buys what makes his own day better: lunch, a school bag for a son, a new tin of glue.

That is the whole market, at its core. Whatever would improve your life, you trade for. To have something to trade, you improve someone else's. Two people, both a little better off, both free to walk away.

Most of what is complicated in commerce is not in that loop. It arrives from outside it.

It arrives when the hammering wakes the whole building at seven and the neighbours, who never agreed to anything, pay for the trade with their sleep. It arrives when there is only one wholesaler of soles in the governorate and he can name any price he likes, because there is nowhere else to go. It arrives when a customer brings in a loose strap and is told the whole sole has to go.

None of these is the market working. Each is the market failing, or being bent.

I find it useful to start there, when something feels wrong in a business. Not with the theory, but with the stall. Who is better off after this exchange? Is anyone paying who was not asked? Is the buyer free to go elsewhere? Is the seller telling the truth?

When all four are answered well, it really is that simple.