It
is no longer the interest of many tradesmen to sell sound wares; the
consumer can no longer rely upon the recommendation of the retailer as a
skilled judge of the quality of a particular line of goods; he is thrown
back upon his own discrimination, and as an amateur he is apt to be
worsted in a bargain with a specialist. There is no reason to suppose
that customers are meaner than they used to be. They always bought
things as cheaply as they knew how to get them. The real point is that
they are less able to detect false cheapness than they used to be. Not
merely do they no longer rely upon a known and trusted retailer to
protect them from the deceits of the manufacturer, but the facilities
for deception are continually increasing. The greater complexity of
trade, the larger variety of commodities, the increased specialization
in production and distribution, the growth of "a science of
adulteration" have immensely increased the advantage which the
professional salesman possesses over the amateur customer. Hence the
growth of goods meant not for use but for sale--jerry-built houses,
adulterated food, sham cloth and leather, botched work of every sort,
designed merely to pass muster in a hurried act of sale. To such a
degree of refinement have the arts of deception been carried that the
customer is liable to be tricked and duped at every turn. It is not that
he foolishly prefers to buy a bad article at a low price, but that he
cannot rely upon his judgment to discriminate good from bad quality; he
therefore prefers to pay a low price because he has no guarantee that by
paying more he will get a better article.
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