A friend from Argentina once told me Argentina keeps its best wines for themselves and exports the mediocre stuff, even at the sake of profits.

Similarly, a friend from Turkey once said he couldn’t find good Turkish olives outside of Turkey because “Turks are terrible businessmen and keep the best olives to themselves.”

These are anecdotal and might be untrue but I liked the idea.

At an individual level, it’s irrational to cooperate in a prisoner’s dilemma yet experiments show people cooperate.

Contributing to open source projects may fall into this category.

Have you observed any obvious behavior that goes counter to profit maximization? Any cool examples?

  • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 day ago

    So typically stuff like that happens if supply outstrips demand, and selling the excess would drive prices so low as to cause the farmers to actually lose money overall. Dumping excess keeps prices balanced, so it at least makes sense from an economic standpoint.