A New Theory of the Just Price

Source: The Bleeding Heart Libertarian
by Matt Zwolinski

“The idea that the just price is the market price isn’t new. The medieval Scholastics held a version of it. But the tradition never had a good account of why the market price should carry moral weight, and once economists showed that prices are set by impersonal supply and demand, the whole idea of a ‘just price’ came to look like a confusion. My paper tries to take the dynamic character of markets seriously, and to make it the cornerstone of a new theory of the just price. In essence, my claim is that the competitive market process, when it is operating, confers a presumption of justice on the prices it produces.” (10/16/26)

https://bleedingheartlibertarian.substack.com/p/a-new-theory-of-the-just-price