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Author Topic: Just Price?  (Read 2913 times)

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Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Just Price?
« Reply #15 on: July 17, 2022, 08:49:19 PM »
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  • What I am wondering about is the price of stuff like antiques or used goods. I know you can pay a little less than the new cost due to how old the item is. However, I bought 3 icons from a garage sale for $5. One of them was hand painted in France in the 20th or 19th century if I had to guess. I am wondering if I should go back and give them more as it probably cost more than 5 bucks to produce that work of art to begin with. Another thing I was wondering is auctions. I'd assume paying low would be fine since the seller takes the risk upon his or herself. I remember reading Aquinas applied just price to just sellers and just buyers so it seems so as long as the two people are just and they agree on a price it could possibly be fine. There is a lot of nuance it seems. Another thing I'd consider is paying at least the cost something was to produce I'm a factory. I am currently looking for 80s instruments and this stuff crossed my mind.

    Ah, don't let your scrupulosity get to you.  Maybe it cost more than $5 to produce these icons in the first place, but maybe not (taking inflation into account).  But for used stuff, you wouldn't be compensating the ORIGINAL producer of the item.  Presumably the original producer of the item was paid what it's worth, and it's not your obligation to investigate the history of these icons all the way back to ensure that.  Of course, they may have been stolen from their original producer too.  But it's impossible to know, and you're under no obligation to find all that out.

    I see a couple gaps in your reasoning:

    1) Person who sold you the icons didn't produce them.  So what he can rightfully get for them is based on what he paid for them plus whatever additional work he may have put into them, e.g. if he had restored them, whatever.

    2) There's no principle that would stop a person from selling something for LESS than it's worth.  If I want to, I can give something away for nothing, or sell a $500,000 house for $1.  There's nothing immoral about that or about accepting it.  What's immoral is only if the SELLER charges more for something than it's worth.  This principle doesn't prevent a BUYER from paying more for something than it's worth.  If some price gouger wanted to charge you $100 for a roll of toilet paper, you can certainly buy it without sin, as the sin would be on his end.  And if he wanted to give it to you for free, there's nothing immoral there on either side.

    In summary, if you can get a deal and get something for less than what it's worth, then there's no sin in buying it.

    Offline SimpleMan

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #16 on: July 17, 2022, 11:14:26 PM »
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  • One thing I haven't seen here, at least not explicitly, is the compensation for risk.  If I buy 100 widgets, and nobody buys them from me, I'm stuck with 100 widgets in my warehouse that I've paid for.  If I sell half of the widgets and then people quit buying widgets, then I'm stuck with half of them.  When I bought the widgets, I basically gambled on being able to sell them all.

    I don't see it as unjust to compensate myself for the risk I took when I bought the 100 widgets, and thus deprived myself of the money I spent on them, money I may get back, profit I may or may not make, or if people all of a sudden quit buying widgets, then I've lost all of my money and I have a warehouse full of widgets.  If I can't eat them, repurpose them, or sell them as scrap or at a deep discount (maybe doing no more than cutting my losses), then they're useless to me, and I've lost all the money I spent on them.

    Just ask Charles Tandy about the time he had to dig a trench and bury all those Activision games (or whatever they were).  Literally couldn't give them away.


    Offline Mark 79

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #17 on: July 18, 2022, 10:51:11 AM »
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  • Risk is inherent to doing any business.

    Compensation for taking risk is "Jєωιѕн values," like their "lost opportunity" and "time value of money."

    The farmer doesn't get paid for his rotten fruit, but the Jєω gets paid for his "short" commodity option and loan interest.

    The Jєωs won't do the back-breaking work, but they will make sure they get paid for their "risk."

    To hell with that.


    Online Pax Vobis

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #18 on: July 18, 2022, 11:37:41 AM »
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  • Quote
    One thing I haven't seen here, at least not explicitly, is the compensation for risk.
    This is true.  I would expect that more risk = more time, more manpower, more costs to get finished, thus a higher price would be quantifiable and expected.

    Example:  Comparing the costs associated with the first hotel ever built on oceanfront property vs a hotel that was built a few blocks inland.  I'm sure that the engineering costs for the oceanfront property were much higher, thus the increase in price is justified.  The "intangible" price increase for a better view of the ocean is also just, imo, because that might be quantifiable in the higher interest rate (or higher collateral amount) that the builder had to incur in order to get a riskier loan from the bank.  Basically, I don't see how any riskier business venture doesn't take more time/cost, so this would all factor in to the higher cost.

    Simpler example:  Let's say you were a chef and you wanted to experiment with making a new type of steak sauce.  Let's say you spent a few hours a week, over the course of a year, to experiment with different spices, ingredients, etc.  All of these experiments cost something - ingredients cost, note taking, giving out samples to friends/family for feedback, etc.  Then, when you think you have a complete product, you have to take the risk of adding it to the steak (additional cost), hoping the customers like it.  If it's a success, much of the cost is hard to quantify.  If a normal steak sauce costs $4 a bottle, and your new sauce is very unique, I think you could charge a much higher fee, to recoup your costs (i.e. $8-10).  If people pay that, then great; no one is forcing them to.  Eventually, you'll have competition and the price will come down.

    Catholic economics gets hairy when you try to compare necessary vs luxury items.  Necessities of life have more rules to follow, morally, with an obligation for a lower amount, but they also have a lifetime of consumer demand, so your business would be low profit but high volume (i.e. a farmer or breadmaker).

    Luxury items are inherently risky because demand can come and go, so higher prices are necessary for the worker to earn back his investment.  High profit but low volume and possible short duration of sales (i.e. fashion clothes, products based on "popularity"). 

    Offline JMarie

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #19 on: July 23, 2022, 12:39:57 PM »
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  • Now according to these laws it is just for buyer and seller to deceive one another (Cod. IV, xliv, De Rescind. Vend. 8,15): and this occurs by the seller selling a thing for more than its worth, and the buyer buying a thing for less than its worth. Therefore it is lawful to sell a thing for more than its worth.

     5. Therefore if either the price exceed the quantity of the thing's worth, or, conversely, the thing exceed the price, there is no longer the equality of justice: and consequently, to sell a thing for more than its worth, or to buy it for less than its worth, is in itself unjust and unlawful.

    if a man find that he derives great advantage from something he has bought, he may, of his own accord, pay the seller something over and above: and this pertains to his honesty.

      Accordingly, if without employing deceit the seller disposes of his goods for more than their worth, or the buyer obtain them for less than their worth, the law looks upon this as licit, and provides no punishment for so doing, unless the excess be too great, because then even human law demands restitution to be made, for instance if a man be deceived in regard to more than half the amount of the just price of a thing [Cod. IV, xliv, De Rescind. Vend. 2,8.
    On the other hand the Divine law leaves nothing unpunished that is contrary to virtue. Hence, according to the Divine law, it is reckoned unlawful if the equality of justice be not observed in buying and selling: and he who has received more than he ought must make compensation to him that has suffered loss, if the loss be considerable. I add this condition, because the just price of things is not fixed with mathematical precision, but depends on a kind of estimate, so that a slight addition or subtraction would not seem to destroy the equality of justice.

     For sometimes it happens that the seller thinks his goods to be specifically of lower value, as when a man sells gold instead of copper, and then if the buyer be aware of this, he buys it unjustly and is bound to restitution
    2) There's no principle that would stop a person from selling something for LESS than it's worth.  If I want to, I can give something away for nothing, or sell a $500,000 house for $1.  There's nothing immoral about that or about accepting it.  What's immoral is only if the SELLER charges more for something than it's worth.  This principle doesn't prevent a BUYER from paying more for something than it's worth.  If some price gouger wanted to charge you $100 for a roll of toilet paper, you can certainly buy it without sin, as the sin would be on his end.  And if he wanted to give it to you for free, there's nothing immoral there on either side.

    In summary, if you can get a deal and get something for less than what it's worth, then there's no sin in buying it.
    I routinely buy items for far less than they are worth on fb marketplace, garage sales, and the like. 

    It is a bit difficult to figure out what exactly the worth is on a used food processor, for example, but if I can purchase one that is worth $80 new for $5-10 used, should I pay the seller a bit more? 


    Offline Jr1991

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #20 on: July 23, 2022, 01:29:39 PM »
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  • This thread got me thinking of the reverse of price gouging. So, what does St. Thomas and the Church say when organizations slash wages when the demand goes down. In other words, wouldn’t it be just as immoral to take advantage of a recession to cut someone’s wages and have the organization take more of the profit?

    Offline Mark 79

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #21 on: July 23, 2022, 02:11:11 PM »
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  • Yes. Unjust wages are as sinful as unjust prices.

    Offline Jr1991

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #22 on: July 23, 2022, 04:11:08 PM »
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  • That's what I thought as well, and yet you have "conservatives" in this country who think it's perfectly all right to rob someone of just wages just because of supply and demand. I heard some Novus Ordo priest saying on EWTN; (I think his name is Robert Chirico), saying something to the effect that well supply, and demand would determine what a just wage is. Ugh, most of these big corporations will rob you blind the first chance they get.


    Offline Mark 79

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #23 on: July 23, 2022, 07:15:33 PM »
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  • Chirico is the founder of the (((libertarian))) Acton Institute who also has performed fag "marriages."  He is through-and-through a product of the ѕуηαgσgυє of Satan.

    Offline Jr1991

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #24 on: July 23, 2022, 07:24:33 PM »
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  • Ah, the Acton Institute that name rings a bell.  The problem is that Chirico and the rest of the Novus Oro teach this nonsense to unsuspecting Catholics, who later become business leaders and think it's morally acceptable to rob wages from workers.

    Offline Jr1991

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #25 on: July 23, 2022, 07:27:21 PM »
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  • Wow, I did not know Chirico performed gαy marriages. EWTN has fallen deep into the sewer! 


    Offline SimpleMan

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    Re: Just Price?
    « Reply #26 on: July 23, 2022, 09:17:25 PM »
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  • Risk is inherent to doing any business.

    Compensation for taking risk is "Jєωιѕн values," like their "lost opportunity" and "time value of money."

    The farmer doesn't get paid for his rotten fruit, but the Jєω gets paid for his "short" commodity option and loan interest.

    The Jєωs won't do the back-breaking work, but they will make sure they get paid for their "risk."

    To hell with that.



    I hear what you are saying, but let's strip this down to a very simple example.

    The fruit farmer knows that, on average, his crop will fail one year out of ten.  (Actually, "failure" is a relative term, some years will be better than others, some worse, but just to keep the math simple, I'll use this, assume normal crops nine years out of ten, and no crop at all in one of those ten years.)  One year out of ten, he makes zero money.  He still has to live and to support his family.  

    Is he not, then, entitled to charge 10% more for his fruit, than it would be worth, if all years were perfect and he could sell everything he grows?  He would, then, in this idealized scenario, put that extra 10% aside each year, and have it to live on, during that year that he has no fruit to sell.  

    No injustice is done to anybody.  He always has enough to live on, even in lean years.  The "market price", if you will, includes that premium he is paid as a kind of "insurance" against bad years.  Rather, the injustice would be done, if he could NOT charge that 10% premium, and had to starve during that one bad year out of ten --- the injustice would not be to his customers, but to him.  And if he didn't have a fruit farm (assume there is only one fruit farm in existence, and it is his, yes, I know, that wouldn't be distributism, but just follow my simplified example to understand the idea), nobody would have any fruit at all.

    I hope this makes some sense.  It does to me.