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Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

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Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#111

Post by oh_sigh »

girvo wrote: post #94
sunseb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean that at all! I am simply suggesting that mixing multiple cultures, religions and belief systems is harmful to the identity and the self-trust of a nation. For example, in my city, they are building new pavements. They are building them high enough so a crazy Islamic guy can't run into pedestrians with his car (like one did in France and in Germany). As a Swiss citizen, I have the right to say I am not ha…

Van attacks aren’t limited to Islamic extremism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_van_attack

That's fair - just Islamic extremism and autistic people.

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#112

Post by justwalt »

kenneth wrote: post #110

Growing up in Switzerland, when we lived on the outskirts of Bern, we would get our milk from such a dispenser at a farm. It was a 5min walk to the farm, and we'd bring our own bottle and fill it up from a spout. The milk was fresh and unpasteurized, so we'd have to leet it sit in the fridge for a few hours to separate it from its cream.

Wow. How does it compare to the store bought milk of today?

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#113

Post by vkou »

sunseb wrote: post #31
radiator wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Geneva thirty years ago there were newspapers for sale on the street using this system.

Yes, and the next logical question would be: what has changed in Geneva these past 30 years? Hints: individualism, globalization, multiculturalism. My father told me that when he served for our national army back then, soldiers just left their weapons alone in front of the train station while they were having a coffee before going into the train.

Obviously, the reduction in atmospheric CFCs since the signing of the Montreal Accord is the culprit.

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#114

Post by vkou »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #48

As others have noted, this is common in rural America, which tend toward being very high-trust communities such that many people don't even bother to lock their doors. Bartering local goods and services is such an integral part of the rural social fabric that everyone has an interest in making it work well with minimal transaction costs. Part of what makes it work in rural areas is that no one is really anonymous. Th…

> As others have noted, this is common in rural America, which tend toward being very high-trust communities such that many people don't even bother to lock their doors

There's a practical reason for that, too. If you're being burglarized in a rural community, a locked door will be an obstacle for ~10 seconds, and you'll come home to just as much of your stuff stolen, plus a broken door to deal with.

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#115

Post by kenneth »

justwalt wrote: post #112
kenneth wrote: post #110

Growing up in Switzerland, when we lived on the outskirts of Bern, we would get our milk from such a dispenser at a farm. It was a 5min walk to the farm, and we'd bring our own bottle and fill it up from a spout. The milk was fresh and unpasteurized, so we'd have to leet it sit in the fridge for a few hours to separate it from its cream.

Wow. How does it compare to the store bought milk of today?

It's not even in the same universe in terms of quality. Although it went bad way quicker, so you had to drink it in a day or so max.

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#116

Post by omnibrain »

Here in southern germany ots of farmers sell Apples and other fruit (and sometimes vegetables) this way. Some also have fields of flowers where you can cut some and pay at a honor box. Though generally you put your money in a heavily bolted down box through a narrow slit.

In Scotland, especially on the Hebrides I saw various types of honor stalls. One sold all kinds of food, prepared and unprepared even warm pies, another one was just a Box with cakes, brownies and muffins and some thermos with tea and coffee and some dishes placed at a POI. In both cases you put your money just into a carboard box, so you could even get change.

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#117

Post by canofbars »

rootusrootus wrote: post #103
vram11 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loss from stealing was called 'shrinkage' by retail industry people, in Sam Walton's autobiography 'Made in America'. As you say, they expected to have some. I wonder why it can't be prevented 100%.

Because stopping retail theft 100% requires an inconvenience to normal customers that is off-putting and will cause them to go somewhere else.

I certainly wouldn't shop somewhere that required my bags and pockets to be searched every time I left the store.

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#118

Post by canofbars »

test1235 wrote: post #15

Honesty boxes are common here in UK countryside too. Same as any country tho', it probably wouldn't work in the towns and cities. I guess the number of people in a city make it more likely that there'd be enough 'cheaters' to ruin the whole enterprise and not make it worthwhile.

You also have enough customers that having someone manage the store doesn't cost very much per sale.

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#119

Post by edmundsauto »

mpfundstein wrote: post #80
rossdavidh wrote: post #75

The book "Freakonomics" details a similar bagel-selling system, where they would put bagels in the break room of workplaces, and you would pay on the honor system. After years of collecting data, the owner realized he had been doing a real-time, real-life experiment on how honest people are. You don't know WHO took without paying, but you can tell HOW MANY of your bagels were paid for. There's analysis of how it vari…

Mind telling tthe findings? :-)

At first, the deposits didn't cover costs. They tried a number of different options to encourage better compliance, the standout finding was that just putting up a printout of a pair of eyes (even drawn) increased compliance.

Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products

#120

Post by edmundsauto »

oh_sigh wrote: post #111
girvo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Van attacks aren’t limited to Islamic extremism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_van_attack

That's fair - just Islamic extremism and autistic people.

Timothy McVeigh was a white dude who parked a van full of explosives and blew up an entire federal building in Oklahoma in 1994.
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