The Effect of Social Institutions on Bartering

One of the demands of living in a place like Guinea that Americans have a hard time adapting to at first is the necessity to barter for many purchases that one makes. Because Americans are used to paying the price a merchant asks in most cases, they are uncomfortable negotiating prices. Add to this that many more items available in Guinea are made through craft labor rather than industrial processes, and that adds a personal dimension – Americans may not like to barter with the creator of a product or provider of a service, because they think it might be taken as a personal insult over the quality of the product or service.

But, as we have seen over and over again since arriving, bartering is a way of life here, necessary (at sometimes very heated) for most purchases. Some things are not up for barter. For example, most cell phones here are pre-paid, and you can buy cards all over the country, including in many street kiosks, that allow you to add minutes to your cell phone. This are priced at Gf 5,000, Gf 10,000, etc., and that is the price you have to pay. In the convenience stores attached to gas stations, the items have prices as well, and it is not expected that a customer would barter, just as you wouldn’t barter for the price of gasoline at a Shell or Total station.

But when a technician came out to install our internet service, the Guineans here had no problem bartering with him over the price of his services. He wanted Gf 100,000, while they offered Gf 50,000. He tried to argue that he was a professional and the price of his services was fixed, but no one bought that argument, and in the end, he walked off with only Gf 50,000. Could you imagine arguing with the cable guy over price, and only paying half of what he charges for his services? To most Americans, this seems funny, because it is impossible to imagine.

Yet, there are things Americans are expected to barter for, mostly “big ticket” items. Most Americans would not think of buying a car without bartering with the salesman, and buying a house also requires a negotiation. You can also barter for items such as washing machines, stereos or lawn mowers, perhaps by accepting a floor model for a discount – in any case, if you go to a department store and make a lower bid on an expensive item, it probably would not be considered completely out of line. But much of our bartering in the U.S. happens within the confines of a larger institutional system of consumption, where rather than working out a deal with an individual seller, we search for the cheapest deal by comparison shopping. We look for “bargains,” rather than bargaining for a deal.

The upshot is that bartering and negotiation happen in both cultures, but in the U.S. it has become more institutionalized and built into our superstructure of economic institutions, whereas in Guinea’s more communitarian and personal culture, economics happens more as a personal relationship. And the personal relationship is fundamental to the bartering process, something it generally takes American visiting developing countries a while to figure out. From the point of view of the locals, bartering is an opportunity to get to know someone, to test them out and to see if they are a sucker or someone worthy of respect. As you go through the negotiation, you learn about each other, and if the negotiation is protracted, you may have opportunities to learn a lot about the other person. One of our teachers here has a side business making sandals and other leather items, and she was trying to sell them to us. Several people bought sandals, paying the first price she asked. I spent about six days negotiating a price with her, offering her much less than she originally asked, walking away when she refused, coming back and feigning interest in other items, basically using all the tricks I have learned from many years of bartering in various Latin American cultures. In the process, she asked me all about my family, I learned about her family, she learned more about the U.S. and I about dance in Guinea, and in the end we arrived at a price that was about 1/3 less than others paid for the shoes. But, it wasn’t really about the money – none of the other buyers had the chance to get to know her as they negotiated a purchase, and she didn’t get to know them, because the transaction was strictly economic. By bartering, I was able to build a social relationship as well. And that is the real value of bartering, and its true representation of the character of the culture.

(By the way, when she sold me the shoes at a cheaper price, the teacher told me not to tell anyone else what price I got, so please don’t tell anyone!) :)