The Harmony of Interests in Practice

Just after dinner tonight, the phone rang.  Our local cable monopoly (Time-Warner) provides "caller ID on TV" if you have their digital phone service like we do.  The TV showed an "866" number and "private caller," which immediately made me think it was a sales call of some sort.  Jody answered it and listened without talking for a bit, suggesting it was a computerized sales call no less.  She then handed me the phone and said "the computer's for you."

As it turned out, it was my local Rite-Aid pharmacy calling to note that a monthly prescription I last refilled in late June was due to have run out on July 25.  For reasons that aren't relevant, I had refilled that prescription very shortly after getting the previous month's prescription, so I actually hadn't even started the bottle they were calling about.  The call was both a reminder to refill it as well as an opportunity to do so using their computerized system.

Now Rite-Aid, of course, is interested in reminding me for their own interests as much as any "concern" about my well-being.  Nonetheless, their profit motive, combined with the wonders of 21st century technology, including the replacement of human tasks by machines as no store could have likely justified the use of human labor necessary to make all of those calls in years past, makes it possible for them to call and remind me that I might have forgotten to refill a potentially important prescription.  Just another little example of how life is getting better, I might note. I was genuinely appreciative that they have a system for doing that (having never "forgotten" to refill in the past) and it matters to me not one bit that their doing so is a matter of their own self-interest, either partially or mostly. 

This is what markets are all about at the end of the day:  the harmonization of the self-interest of actors via decentralized coordination.  That harmonization allows us to live in peaceful cooperation and extend the benefits of Mises' Law of Association to more and more of humanity.  A computer calling me to remind me to refill my prescription might seem like a little thing in the broader scope of human accomplishment, but it symbolizes the real processes that have made possible the levels of peace and prosperity that we have. 

Comments

[Greg Ransom]

Would it have bothered you if it was a government ObamaCare computer calling?

I sense there is a difference. What is it?

[Steve Horwitz]

The question is whether under ObamaCare or any other gov't dominated system, there would be sufficient competitive pressure to lead sellers to behave in such an accommodating way.