Predictably Irrational— The High Price of Ownership

the high price of ownership

Ownership pervades our lives and, in a strange way, shapes many of the things we do. Adam Smith wrote, ‘Every man (and woman)… lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial society.’ (133)

Three irrational quirks in our human nature:
1) we fall in love with what we already have.
2) we focus on what we might lose, rather than what we might gain
3) we assume other people will see the transaction from the same perspective as we do (‘one man’s floor is another man’s ceiling’) (134)

Another peculiarity is that we can begin to feel ownership even before we own something.

“virtual ownership” is one mainspring of the advertising industry. (136)