I suppose we couldn't realize, or could realize but couldn't accept, that the logic of business is not a logic in that sense. It's not only a narrow consideration of profits and losses, but a larger logic of, well, appetite. To buy something is to assert oneself, and to sell it, for whatever reason, is to collaborate in one's own diminishment. /279
In Adam Gopnik's "Paris to the Moon," the author reflects on the complex nature of business, suggesting it's driven by more than mere profit and loss calculations. He points out that transactions involve a deeper human instinct and appetite that shapes our motivations. Buying, for example, is an act of self-assertion, while selling can be seen as a surrendering of one's agency.
Gopnik implies that our engagement in commerce is tied...