Benefits from Trade Day

Friday, November 1st, 2013

November 1, the day after Halloween, should be known as Benefits from Trade Day:

Friday, American children will be making piles out of their loot: stuff they want to keep, and stuff they want to swap for treats they actually like. They will then commence creating and participating in a market, trading things they don’t want for things they want, negotiating exchange rates between various bite-size currencies, and sometimes trading things they do want for things they want more, or for more of something else they want.

They do this entirely out of self-interest: because it will increase their happiness. No adult needs to coerce them into trading, or even suggest or facilitate it.

There is no better day to teach kids about the benefits of trade (and about subjective value), so I propose we promote November 1 as Benefits from Trade Day.

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Comments

  1. Chris C. says:

    Oh, yes! My four sisters and I, who had at best an adversarial relationship on other days, would be all “I’ll trade you 2 Brand X bars for 1 Brand Y.” Of course, I still had to hide what I had after November 1, or they would steal it, but 11/1 was a truce period.

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