On the first saturday of every month, a different sort of free market economics is practiced at Carrboro's "Really Really Free Market." From 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on those Saturday afternoons, everything that changes hands under the Carrboro Town Commons awnings is given away for free.
That's right-all the food, clothing, anarcho-environmentalist literature and bizarre knick-knacks can be had for free. The particularly daring can even get a comped hair cut or massage.
Anyone who's ever clawed tooth and nail to get a free t-shirt on the plaza is probably wondering: Won't they run out of stuff? Won't people hoard as much as they can, leaving nothing for anyone else?
Surprisingly, that doesn't seem to happen. Though there were a few hectic moments at April's free market when people rushed a table laden with home-cooked delicacies and a box filled with well-thumbed John Grisham novels, for the most part the market was chaos free.
Also surprising, most of the goods being given away there - save the three-volume collection of the best clips from the 1992 Democratic National Convention - were actually things of value. Had people wanted to sell them at a garage sale for a nominal price, they could have.
Those that come to the market do so based on principle. Many of the people at April's market-an eclectic mix of aged environmentalists, large families and ideological UNC hipsters-emphasized the market's importance as a community gathering, as well as a being a more effective way to recycle.
The market has no official organizers; it continues to exist through the cooperative goodwill of its participants. For those Duke students daring to look beyond the classroom take on collective action problems, Carrboro's Really Really Free Market provides a powerful lesson about the value of sharing.
-YOUSEF ABUGHARBIEH
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