Earlier I wrote about British Columbia’s ban on selling junk food in schools, and the subsequent and inevitable black market junk-food dealers who popped up in response. Now the province begins to reap what it has sown.
Y’see, black markets are — by definition — not subject to direct government regulation and control; the only public oversight is “don’t get caught”. This is why liquor stores (“above the table”) resolve their disputes (if any) in the courts, and drug dealers (“under the table”) resolve their disputes with beatings and murders. It follows, then, that with necessary government control completely absent, the players in an underground market — in this case, selling junk food in high schools — would display the worst winner-take-all, me-first, dog-eat-dog, hyphenated-cliché traits of capitalist greed normally found only within the pages of Dickens novels.
Heh.
Two high school students in Burnaby, B.C., who made headlines in September for selling junk food out of their lockers are helping others with their earnings.
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Within the first week of business, the two made roughly $200 selling candy and chocolate bars out of their lockers at Moscrop Secondary School. The school has said it wouldn’t punish the young merchants but would try to persuade them to stop selling unhealthy treats.
The formerly clandestine operation isn’t about making a profit — the students are using their earnings to give back to the community.
“Both of us have jobs and we figured we don’t really need the money, so we decided to give it charity,” [one of the students] said. “For each month, we pick a charity and donate as much as we can to that charity.”
On Friday, the two Grade 11 students presented the BC Children’s Hospital with $500, which is the profit they made between September and October.
See? A shocking lesson in the sort of cataclysmic avarice that naturally occurs in a completely free market.
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