Who Were the Sea Peoples?

The concept of a " just price ," and by contrast of an unjust price, have sometimes been harshly criticized by libertarians. But it is really not too hard a concept to grasp, and I think even the critics know, in their heart-of-hearts, that it is possible for "voluntary" exchange to be unjust. To offer an example: last night, while falling asleep watching Perry Mason , I caught an add for "pure gold" Buffalo "coins." There were charts about the price of gold, and history about the American Buffalo shooting up to $3000 in price. (I cannot see they ever actually were that high, but...) Then, quickly mumbled, was a bit about the good for offer not being the American Buffalo, but a non-monetary copy. Louder again about the gold being 99.99% pure, and then something real quick about the actual amount of gold in these "coins," which turned out to be 14... milligrams! That is about 5/10000 of an ounce, or about 70 cents worth of gold. ...

Livio Di Matteo has a nice discussion of the history of supply-and-demand analysis here . Along the way, the idea of a "just price" arises, and is regarded, both by Di Matteo and commenter Bob Murphy (probably no relation to the Murphy we know and love) as an antiquated idea, incompatible with modern price theory. But perhaps just price theories are not incompatible with supply-and-demand analysis. My reading of Aristotle (from whom Aquinas would have drawn his basic notions) suggests to me that what he was looking at (without having the terms, of course!) was producer and consumer surplus, and the "equality" that had to hold was between these surpluses, so that if I would buy at any price under $2, and Murphy would sell at any price above $1, the just price should be around $1.50. "Unjust" prices would come about when one of us has far greater bargaining power, and "forces" the price to $1.01 or $1.99. To consider this in more concrete term...