Instead of buy-one-get-one-free offers, everyday life now involves carefully comparing prices and feeling increasingly powerless
Under capitalism, prices are supposed to be the centre of everything. They are the key agreement between buyer and seller. They are the one clear and reliable piece of information, on which the whole often opaque and unstable system depends.
So it struck me as strange when some of my local London shops stopped displaying the prices of some goods a couple of years ago. It started with upmarket fishmongers, and I wondered whether this was because wealthy customers didn’t need to count their pennies. But then the practice spread to corner shops and greengrocers, with a wider clientele, and to everyday purchases such as fruit and vegetables. There was a cost of living crisis going on, the worst in Britain for 40 years, but parts of Hackney seemed to be in denial.
Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist
