Since when was a race to the bottom a race worth running?

This needs to be addressed!

By definition a race to the bottom refers to a competitive state where a
company, state or nation attempts to undercut the competition’s prices by sacrificing standards of quality or worker safety, defying regulations, or paying low wages. This is the Zimbabwean business environment in a nutshell.

We understand that industry seeks to get every penny out of every market. We are now seeing a situation where competitors have resigned themselves to competing on price over quality and therefore strive to drive their prices as low as possible. And we know that many are willing to cut corners and undercut others in order to have the most market share.

We can eliminate rules protecting industry players and consumers alike. We can extort ourselves by showing up to work harder for less, in order to underbid a competitor. We can take advantage of our broken economy with skewed pricing models all because we know that our customers are desperate and will eventually have to settle. These might be easy ways out but the consequences are dire.

We know we can do that. There’s always the opportunity to cut a corner, sacrifice lifestyle quality and suck it up as we race to grab a little more market share. It’s the survivor in us right? It’s on temporary right?

But the problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win.

You might make a few more bucks for now, but not for long and not with pride. Someone is always willing to go further than you did. Someone will always find a way to be cheaper or more brutal than you. What precedent does this set? At the end of the day, you’re down on your revenue, your quality and worst of all your self-respect. Is it really worth it…