Glamor Economics

Chapter 46

Chapter 6 Section 9 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder—consumption preference

At the beginning of 1936, King George V of England died. Edward, who was 41 years old and unmarried at the time, was the crown prince, so he became King Edward VIII of England.He fell in love with Wallis, an American woman whom he met several years ago, and decided to marry her and make her queen.Wallis, who was 39 years old at the time, had been divorced once and married the second time to become the wife of American businessman Simpson.This decision violated royal traditions and religious regulations, caused an uproar, and received many resistance and opposition.Under such circumstances, Edward VIII resolutely made the choice of "not loving the country and loving the beautiful women". He made a radio speech on December 12 of the same year announcing his renunciation of the throne, and then quietly left the UK to divorce Mrs. Simpson in June of the following year. married in France.

Edward VIII and Wallis lived together for 35 years until Edward's death in 1972.The title of Duke of Windsor was given to him by his younger brother, George VI, father of the current Queen Elizabeth II, after taking over the throne.

There are two completely different comments on this legendary love.Let's take a look at how a British economist commented.

"In the 20th century, our great Britain had one of the 'most irrational' crown princes. The reason is that he made a very bad deal. He chose a woman who was not suitable from any point of view. to be his consort, and thereby relinquish his claim to the throne.

"The object chosen by the king (Mrs. Simpson) is just a humble illegitimate daughter. She is divorced, full of style, pretentious, stubborn and not outstanding, not beautiful at all, but she just seduces a Responsible king, great loss to England as a result..."

While another scholar relayed Edward's feelings for Mrs. Simpson, we can see his fascination with Mrs. Simpson.

"The woman has blond hair and blue eyes, white teeth and thick lips. She has a plump body and is delicious. There are thousands of styles in her speech, and she is full of manners when she moves. The Prince of Wales has been peeping for a long time, and his heart is pounding. He can't help but break the ice-cold man in front of women. Get used to it, take the initiative to chat with that single woman."

Why does the same person (Mrs. Simpson) have such a big difference in the eyes of different people.Especially in the first paragraph, we can deeply feel the economist's dissatisfaction. In his eyes, at least everything that Edward's accession to the WTO has done is far less than the cost.Because the woman was "divorced, pompous and pretentious" and extremely low status.But when another scholar described her, she thought she was extremely beautiful and charming.

Although people's feelings cannot be measured by the concept of consumer goods, when we put this principle between Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson, it is not difficult to find that it is also applicable.The so-called "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is precisely Mrs. Simpson's distinctive character that attracted Edward VIII. He liked this kind of woman, to be precise, this woman.At least he believes that falling in love with Mrs. Simpson will be an unavoidable "preference".But love is often selfish. In order to allow himself to have this beautiful relationship for a long time, he is willing to pay a certain price for his "preference" consumption.It's just that everything he has paid for it is indeed too great from the perspective of the entire country.

According to economic assumptions, people have preferences.Preference is subjective and a relative concept.There are more emotional factors than rational factors that cause preferences.Preference is affected by many factors such as cultural factors, economic factors, social factors and so on.Since everyone's preferences are not the same, it will cause everyone's behavioral choices to be different.Economics believes that each person forms a demand that can reflect his own wishes under certain constraints according to his own preferences, and then makes his own behavioral decisions on this basis to maximize utility.In fact, preference is everyone's own psychological feeling. If someone insists on replacing others with his own preference, even with good intentions, it will inevitably reduce the utility of others by substituting for others.If people don't buy it, it will be thankless.Acknowledging and respecting everyone's preferences maximizes utility.

[links to related words]

Preference refers to the fact that consumers have special trust in specific commodities, stores or trademarks, go to certain stores repeatedly or habitually, or buy commodities of the same trademark or brand repeatedly and habitually.Consumers who belong to this type often take actions under the control of their subconscious mind.

(End of this chapter)