On Black Friday people line up in the middle of the night to get the best deals at stores with amazing sales. While everyone in America is starting to think about buying gifts for the holidays (and there is a fixed amount of goods in stores) the goods are rewarded to the Americans who camp outside stores on a fake holiday that comes the day after Thanksgiving.
The rationing mechanism for Black Friday is that of queues - it is first come fist serve. This mechanism is the most costly as people must pay the opportunity cost of standing in line. While people are standing in line and not dining other useful things (like sleeping), the fail of this mechanism is the fact that there is no sense of value.
Stores believe that if people truly valued a good then they would get in line but this isn't the case. Just because a rich person in front of me wants to buy one of twenty toys for their kid doesn't mean they should get it. What if the only thing my kid wants is that toy? Who values it more and who should get it? - Me. But who is in line first? - Mr Rich man.
So even prices fail to be a rationing mechanism here. Queues have taken over Black Friday and there is no sense of value that comes into play during this holiday. We have failed.
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