Which side it’s buttered…

I feel that commenting on this issue is really a bit arrogant as I’m not the one hardest hit by bread price-fixing. But you’ve got to love the ironies that sometimes occur in the third world.

Watching the news the other night, the headline article revolved around Pioneer Foods and the bread price-fixing scandal. I thought all the demons had already been vanquished on this one, but clearly Sasko Sam was still hiding behind a particularly hardy bush. Yesterday, Pioneer vehemently dismisses the accusations, today they aren’t so adamant.

It’s a particularly emotional issue, mainly because such a large percentage of our people live on the bread line. Literally. And because there have been such abuses in the past. I agree in principal that it’s a heinous pre-meditated act. I’m not sure if I trust the motives of the competition commission entirely (you can make any cause sound like a righteous crusade when there’s big fines, dollar signs and the sans-culottes are restless).

The news crew then switched to a story in Gugulethu. It seems that some consumers were dissatisfied because the price of bread was too high. Luckily, this had nothing to do with Pioneer Foods. The problem was that certain spaza shops were ripping the people off. So consumers exercised their economic rights and shopped at cheaper stores, which just so happened to be owned by Somali nationals.  As a result of the loss of revenue, a cease-and-desist letter was issued to the Somali shop owners by the local ones and the two parties agreed that the Somalis would fix higher prices. I’m sure that pleased both resellers, but what about the man on the street?

At what point is interference in a free market justified? How do you rationalise certain tactics that benefit a few interested parties at one level and not another level? At the end of the day, if the consumer has to pay more, surely neither is right? I just don’t know if everybody sees it that way though. It stands to reason that those who cry the most about freedom being violated stand to gain the most from freedom being granted. The question is: “freedom for whom?”