I prefer the term “gouging”. Profiteering is illegal and immoral, even if we choose to tolerate it for commodities which are in high demand but are essentially luxury items, like Super Bowl tickets.

Yes, prices do tend to go up as the Supply/Demand ratio diminishes, no one denies that. But deliberate, planned, engineered predatory pricing, market manipulation and the deliberate suppression of competition in order to maximize profits should not be dignified with a term that suggests it is simply the result of some abstract law of nature, or the result of some obscure socioeconomic mathematical inevitability, or even an unfortunate but unavoidable quirk of human nature. It is a crime, just as voter suppression and gerrymandering are not constitutional, or legal, or traditional, or legislative, or the result of democratic processes or administrative inertia. They are a crime.

In either case, it is wrong, and it is always the result of one group of people deliberately abusing another. And it usually has its origins in the same crowd.

I know that’s what you’re saying. And what I have been trying to get through to you for months is this:

Whether the deck is stacked or not, S&D is relevant. “Stacking the deck” CHANGES THE OUTCOME produced by S&D, not the fact that S&D is relevant. Criminal behavior, racist exploitation, dropping bombs on countries doesn’t make S&D irrelevant, it “stacks the deck” and CHANGES THE OUTCOME produced by S&D. Regulations that help improve the lives of workers, helps sick children, provides free education to the masses doesn’t make S&D irrelevant, it “stacks the deck” and CHANGES THE OUTCOME produced by S&D.

The card counter and the crooked casino may be trying to rip each other off, but the chips will still end up somewhere. Most likely way out of place than they would be if everyone was on the up and up, but that simply moves the lines on the graph, not the fact that the graph is still operating.

There is no “supposed to” outcome. It’s a formula, not a moral code. 2 + 2 = 4, but if you change the values to 5 + 9 the outcome isn’t “supposed to” still be 4.

Its irrelevant because S&D ONLY operates the way its supposed to when the house hasn’t stacked the deck. It doesn’t matter how skillfully you count cards if the casino is crooked.

Blaming S&D for worker exploitation is like blaming gravity for plane crashes. When was the last time a plane crash investigation determined the cause of the crash was gravity? There’s a lot more going on that causes the plane crash than the constant of gravity.

When I was a youngster, field jobs in Florida were handled by blacks and poor whites. If the harvest had to be brought in in a hurry, even relatively well-off rural whites would temporarily pick oranges or strawberries because S and D drove up wages on the short term. I never worked in the fields myself, but many of my high school classmates did. In college, I worked highway, building and landscaping construction and most of my colleagues were also student/hippy types. (There were no illegals, and blacks were kept out by racism).

Agricultural black workers were concentrated in the big factory farms, and conditions were so bad out there the Feds had to periodically raid them because the workers were being kept in plantation-like conditions. You know, company goons with dogs and shotguns to make sure they didn’t sneak away at night, company stores and high-interest loans to make sure they were always in debt, and cooperative local sheriffs ready to do whatever it took to keep the plantation running smoothly. They just busted a big operation like this in the Devil’s Garden (SW of Lake Okeechobee) a few years ago, although this time they were not African-Americans (they’re too well organized and have too many political allies). They were illegals, Haitian and Dominican blacks

But once the growers started importing foreign workers they were the only ones willing to work for the shit wages being offered. And they didn’t cause no trouble, either, or they would be deported by the migras in the middle of the night.

“Americans won’t do that kind of work any more” is right wing propaganda. Some Americans are working three jobs now, and their wives, too, just to pay the rent and feed the kids. They would be out there picking lettuce if there was a real Law of Supply and Demand Invisibly Handling wages. To imply they are too lazy or too scared of getting their hands dirty is an insult and a lie.

By bringing in cheap, illegal labor, by ignoring the law, and by using law enforcement to discipline unruly workers, the Bosses can pretty much violate so-called supply and demand pretty much any time they want. And they will, every fucking chance they get. These are not anomalous or special circumstances, or one of a kind violations. It is the inevitable result of the misuse of economic power and officials in the pockets of ” business community leaders”. And the same thing is true in any industry or business, at least in kind, if not in degree.

There are strong economic incentives to bring about these outrages, and unless they are sought out and nipped in the bud, they are inevitable. That’s where the system naturally tends to go if left to itself. The Invisible Hand is usually a clenched fist…with a bullwhip in it.

But yes, there are currently about 10m more jobs out there than workers to fill to them, and of course ALL workers benefit from that labor shortage, including illegal ones. You better believe day laborers outside Home Depot won’t work for less than $15 an hour right now because they know they can get it. But the labor shortage is a relatively new situation. Sooner or later the situation will change and of course illegal unskilled workers will be at the bottom of the totem pole.

And there’s not a lot of American protesters out there demanding they get a shot at the field workers jobs.

It you let the Free Market operate freely, wages will rise until the supply meets the demand. Isn’t that the way the system is supposed to operate?

So if the price of tomatoes goes through the roof because we aren’t relying on Mexican slave labor to pick them, then so be it. That’s the Invisible Hand at work.