“When the customer is always wrong”

Let’s do a little thought experiment:  Imagine a bakery that, instead of selling you what you ask for when you go inside, enrolls you on their customer list against your will, charges your account for whatever package of goods they think you should buy, and sends someone to collect the bill at gunpoint.  If you want any of the pastries or loaves they have on display, you’re expected to take them along with the bakery’s choice of other offerings whether you want them or not.

And if you walk in to pick up a loaf of fresh-baked bread, and the baker beats you senseless or tasers you, you’d better not complain if you don’t want to be called a hypocrite.  After all, you badmouth the baker, you dirty stinking hippie, but you sure don’t mind coming to him when you want bread!  Anyway, you little ingrate punk, I’ve seen what it’s like when people don’t have bread, and believe you me the bakers are the only thing standing between you and hunger!

Think about it.  Do you think bread is something we wouldn’t have if there weren’t a special class of bakers who  forced us to consume it on their terms, and collected payment from us by force?  Do you think our need for bread obligates us to obey the orders of bakers without question, or let them beat us up when they’re having a bad day?

From “Government Services: When the Customer is Always Wrong” by Kevin Carson of C4SS.org.