Chapters 17 and 18 of Candide mention the protagonist’s miraculous arrival to the mystical city of “El Dorado,” where streets where paved in gold and the natives acted as living in an economic utopia. When ready to take leave after being shown around, fed, and invited onto the king’s quarters for no price at all, he is let free to leave and even paid for the development of a technique to help him get out of the impenetrable city. As if all the services rendered weren’t enough, the king offers anything but guides as the companions get ready to leave towards Europe, to which Candide answers that he would only ask for sheep saddled with food and mud of the country, which in effect is precious gold for the previous character. To this petition, the king answers: “I don’t understand your European taste for our yellow mud, but take all you want and much good may it do to you (83).” Gold was insignificant and priceless to the natives who walked around in it, but to Europeans it was the ultimate material for which wars were fought and people killed. This has happened through history as a result of cultural differences, especially when the globe wasn’t so tightly connected and little cultural diffusion had happened between the old and new world. This happened when Europeans first arrived to the Americas and changed mirrors and object of the sort, which for the natives where impossible anyway else, for Indian diamonds and precious stones, which were not a big deal to the Indians for they had so many.
Even today, to a lesser extent, geographical positioning and cultural influences imposes a mental “price” on certain products giving them more or less value depending on the amount of such available and how easy the product is to obtain. As to pose a simple example, let’s take into account a friend’s lucrative business. This anonymous friend brings candy and edible products from the United States and sells them in Colombia at three times the price he bought them, and people keep on buying his stock. This can only be explained by the difference in access to the mentioned product: a citizen of New York wouldn’t pay any impressive price on the merchandise for it is so common and easy to acquire, on the other hand, a Colombian gladly pays the high price for the product is so scarce and unique in comparison to national industry.
As I read across an article in the Real Estate section of the New York Times, a subject I am fond of, I decided to share it with you as to enhance your interpretation not only of Candide, but of basic economic and even human psychology as well. The article by Shelley Emling titled Europeans Again Interested In Florida Homes, mentions how foreign buyers have once again showed interest in the State’s real estate sales after a prolonged period of small sales. It points out how Florida homes are “on sale” for half the prices they represented around 2003-2004. Sales have greatly declined as a result of the economic crisis we are all very much aware of, and would have proved much worse without foreign awareness and investment. In her article, Shelley Emling mentions how “In 2008, foreign buyers were responsible for about one-third of new and existing home sales in Florida, according to the National Association of Realtors 2009 profile of international home buying. In 2005, overseas purchasers accounted for about 15 percent of the houses sold in the state.”
After I have kept you wondering on the intention and purpose of the above article I will proceed to demonstrate its connection to Candide. Not only will it make you more aware and interesting people to know about economic situations, but it helps understand how people put prices on certain products. Going back to the novel, Europeans put a great price on gold and emeralds as a result of a scarce supply and a exceedingly high demand, but the natives of the golden city appointed it no price at all and even walked in it naturally because it was so abundant that no one found it a luxury but rather a given. The same thing happens with Florida’s real estate and any other product on the global market to a lesser extent: price is put on it according to supply and demand. When homes were at sale at absurd amounts and little or no buyers emerged to meet the supply, the prices of the houses fell 50% which is an absurd amount of money when applied to a great investment as buying a house. I do not mean to make economy sound so basic for it is in fact extremely complex, but it all goes back to the simple principle of: it only costs as much as I want it, and the easier it is to get, the weakest my want for the product.
Taking it back a bit further, we can connect it to human interpretation, which ironically enough, we are carrying out right here. We interpret everything according to our culture and context, which is in return affected by what we have, want, and need. If the economy puts a certain price on a dollar then that’s what its worth and that how badly people want it in general. If society put emotional weight on certain theme it is because they are unused to it and have a hard time getting to understand it.
I hope I have not exceeded myself in making this point for I consider it rather interesting and enriching to our experience as member of an economic and materialist society. Voltaire was also a member of a similar society, and that why we have the ability to interpret and identify ourselves with his messages, but remember: his conditions where different as he wrote it, so are his ideas and interpretations of such different from us.
Europeans Again Interested in Florida Homes:
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