May 13, 2026–I need potatoes.
I’m grilling steaks. The meal requires a traditional side dish that is delicious with gravy.
You have potatoes. Piles of potatoes. You grow them in your garden, and you have dug up more than your family can eat in a reasonable amount of time.
Yes, I have no potatoes. So sell me your potatoes, I say. I’ll give you five zlotys per pound.
No, no, no, you reply. It took me a long time and lots of chicken poop and incantations in the moonlight to nurture these potato plants, then I had to pay the neighbor kids to dig them out of the dirt. I need ten zlotys.
Six, I offer.
Nine, you say.
We settle on seven-and-a-half zlotys.
This is how our economic system works at its root level. Of course, there are always external factors. Perhaps my guests include vegetarians, for whom I will need extra potatoes. Or your potatoes might be in danger of spoiling, giving you incentive to let them go for fewer zlotys.
Why am I describing this ridiculously elementary example of how a marketplace works? Because as I look around our country as it exists, I think some of us overlook, or take for granted, the exquisitely delicate dance that happens every minute, every day, in every town.
This perspective popped up as I drove past an older house that has sported a For Sale sign in its front yard for the better part of a year.
I am confident the property will sell. They always do. But the process of how that transaction will come to completion is an object lesson in the elegance of our economic system.
Person A finds themselves in a position where they need to sell a property they own. Looking around at the current market, they assign a price they would like to get. They put up the For Sale sign.
Meanwhile, Person B is eager to start a business, and needs a physical presence. Person B spies this house, and inquires about the price. Alas, it is too high for him to make it a feasible acquisition.
This is when the dance begins. One force is the need for Person A to liquidate the property. The longer it stays unsold, the longer he has to pay taxes and continue maintenance. Perhaps he needs the funds for other projects. Growing more potatoes, perhaps.
The longer Person B delays buying the property, the more it delays him opening his business and beginning to earn income.
So Person B offers a price lower than the asking price. Person A comes down a bit. But they are still far apart.
But just as God made little green apples (and delectable potatoes, presumably), eventually the transaction will take place, as the opposing pressures equalize to the point of a mutually satisfying sale.
All this is not choreographed. Negotiations occur naturally, following the laws of nature.
Unfortunately, many of us have lost touch with this process, as it has been removed from our daily lives. We go into a grocery store, see the price of an item, and pay it or do not pay it.
Those who have lived overseas are more familiar with bargaining for commodities. It happens in every daily market. When I needed a kilo of potatoes, I bargained with the seller, who came off the price or added in another spud, and we both walked away feeling satisfied that we got the better deal. It is ironic that during that time I lived in a socialist-run country, capitalism was happening on every street corner.
It reminds us of Churchill’s observation that capitalism is the worst economic system… except for all the others.