Inside Money: Stop and shop not

I settled the deal in the old-fashioned way - counting out crisp 20s in a shady downstairs corridor of the category 1 heritage listed concrete building.

And while the transaction followed strict commercial guidelines there was also a pleasant social element in this retail experience. In an age where human beings are rapidly being disintermediated by online shopping it was kind of nice, for once, to cut in the middleman.

We talked a bit, and we probably would've anyway in a non-transactional Larry David 'stop and chat' situation but the commerce certainly underpinned the conversation.

And according to this excellent Yuletide article by Financial Times columnist John Kay, the blurring border between commercial and social has its dangers.

He explores the notion, proposed by pioneering British social researcher Richard Titmuss 40 years ago, that "when commercial exchange resembles a social relationship the existence of the former taints the latter".

Kay says, for example, paying children to do their homework might sometimes be an effective strategy but "not even Chicago economists have cash registers by the kitchen sink: to do so would undermine the discipline of family life".

However, in this season of giving it's especially difficult not to view kids as 'cost centres' - or, if you're feeling charitable, 'illiquid long-term investments'.

Sales statistics are mixed so far this year but it's doubtful New Zealand's precarious financial position will stop the children's noisy clamouring for expensive gifts or the marketing thereof.

But, hopeless as the cause may be, it's the duty of all parents to resist.

"The direct juxtaposition of the purely commercial exchange with the exchange based solely on mutual affection is offensive and unstable," Kay writes.

"That is why it is necessary to withhold from children the knowledge that the department store Santa Claus dispenses only gifts for which parents have already paid."

Merry Christmas everyone - no obligation, of course.