Belying its simplicity and ubiquity, the worth tag is a surprisingly current financial improvement, Aeon journal writes. For hundreds of years, haggling was the norm, finally growing right into a system that required clerks and shopkeepers to coach as negotiators. Within the mid-Nineteenth century, nonetheless, Quakers within the US started to imagine that charging folks totally different quantities for a similar merchandise was immoral, in order that they began utilizing worth tags at their shops to counter the ills of haggling. And, as this quick video from NPR’s Planet Cash explains, by taking an ethical stand, the Quakers inadvertently revealed an inefficiency within the outdated financial system and have become inconceivable pricing pioneers, altering commerce and historical past with one easy innovation.

Most of us are used to costs that don’t change. You go right into a retailer to purchase some Quaker Oats, and so they’re going to price the identical for you as they’ll for whoever tries to purchase them subsequent.

For many of human historical past, you needed to haggle over costs earlier than you may purchase one thing.

The Quakers have been among the many first folks to decide to fastened costs — and so they did it as a result of they thought it was extra truthful. Turned out, it was additionally good enterprise. That is the unusual story of the lengthy journey of that little piece of paper.