Why is the customer always right when they are wrong?

I've worked at my share of places where the managers repeat how the customer is always right. But what about the incidents where they are wrong? I don't want to insult the intelligence of a customer, but there are situations where they are wrong. Isn't it our job and duty to ensure that the customer has all the best information available to make the best choice possible? And let's not over complicate a redundant and somewhat imbecilic ritual. You, as a consumer, are buying something based on the genius marketing campaigns of sales firms. You are completing a transaction predestined by commercials and the need to satisfy a desire that wasn't in your head until someone else put it there.

My problem isn't that people buy stupid stuff. My problem is how unhuman people have become when buying stupid stuff.  Or when just paying for something.  I'm a big fan of saving money and paying for value.  I like to feel like I'm getting a good deal.  But that in no way means I have to demean a sales person, or a manager who is just trying to make ends meet.  My experience today showed me just how "elite" people have come to view themselves.  On a good day, I get to call myself a manager of rental and commerical properties.  Today being the first Monday since everyone moved out on 7/31, I get to make my rounds, assess damage, and get crews ready for prep work on units that have been vacated.  The security deposit always becomes an issue no matter how cool the tenants are.  When I think of myself as a landlord or as the representative of a landlord, I like to think of myself as being fair.  If it's minor wear and tear stuff that I have extra of, I'm not going to go out of my way to charge someone.  But if an assortment of hair is laden in the bathroom which I can't determine the origin of, lipstick on the mirror, paint chips from maincures on the floor, and half of the tile grout in the new color of "puppy urine," I'm going to start putting on the accountant hat.  This is all stuff that is honestly considered a biohazard, and since it came from you and you think it's too gross to clean up, imagine how someone else is going to feel.  I get my estimates from the most reliable companies I have had personal experience using.  I use these people for where I live so I know I'm getting value based on past work and they all charge what I think is fair for stuff I don't want to do.  Consumers don't see it that way.  They see it as, this is my deposit, it's a lot of cash, and isn't it in your line of duty to deal with stuff like this on a day to day basis?  The simple answer is yes.  And the prices I've come up with that I am going to charge you as a consumer who used my premises to live and decided not to exercise mutual respect as the place when you left it is not even close to the condition when you came in, is going to be fair.  I'm not going to factor in an overcharge that you are a huge douchebag/bitch who doesn't know an honest day's work.  I'm going to provide you with figures from companies who do the work you didn't want to do, (ie: clean up after your own dirty ass) and they do it with a courtesy, a smile, and a fair price for their time and materials. 

The basis of what our economy started out as was a system of common decency where both parties were serving the other.  The merchant was providing a service or product with courtesy, and a consumer was providiing the cold hard dinero so that said merchant could maintain a living and continue to provide said service/product. Somehow, this simple dance has been perverted into merchants who try and screw consumers over, and consumers who know everything because they read it on the internet. 

So to my fellow merchants, I state the following.  Business is science where the overall goal is the long haul.  This entails that a certain degree of integrity be exercised.  Service needs to be provided with a smile.  Information, no matter how trivial, needs to be delivered accurately and politely.  Empathy is key when trying to provide a valid explanation. 

To my fellow consumers, hear ye, hear ye.  When you go to work, you are in these people's shoes as merchants.  Do you enjoy your work and contact with other people?  Chances are probably not.  So why continue the vicious cycle?  If you've had a bad day, direct somewhere else.  We are all completing tasks that in a eutopic world, we would not choose to do.  Exercise respect.  You are not always right.  You do not have all the answers or you would not be in the store/building/wherever you are buying stuff.  Exercise empathy.