Free Markets Nurture Empathy

(From the Persuasion Powerpoint section in Volume 19, No. 10 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) Would you like to live in a world where empathy is both virtuous and profitable? A world where it pays to meet the wants and needs of others? Look for it in the private sector. Private enterprises. Free markets. Without empathy, private businesses and free markets wither and die. With empathy, they survive and thrive. Each business must be guided by empathy for their customers’ wants and needs and budgets. Or the customers will seek out and patronize a business that does. Every retail business faces this truth each day. What would attract customers to our store? How do our shoppers want to be greeted and treated? What store layout and merchandising would appeal most to our customers? What kind of employees would our customers be most comfortable with? What do our shoppers expect from our employees? Information? Guidance? Courtesy? Close assistance, or room to roam? What prices and terms make it easiest for our customers to buy? What do our shoppers think? What do they know? What do they need to know? What do they want? What are they looking for — that no one else has offered them? Empathy guides businesses toward the right solutions. The answers that open the wallets and purses of their customers. Private enterprises instill a deep and abiding empathy in each of us who work there. Free markets nurture empathy.