[Antoninus]

Who decides what is a "fair" price? The government or the marketplace? This is the kind of reasoning that gets us rent controls, the minimum wage, price controls, etc.

Nonsense. The cure's inventor would set the price, who, being a good and moral man, would set it to cover his costs, pay his workers, and provide a nice existence for himself. And, when need be, he would act in a charitable way, seeking out hard cases who couldn't even pay the fair price he asks for his cure and giving it to them gratis thereby earning the praise of his fellow men, good publicity for his business, and a treasure in heaven.

Notice, this is how a Christian business owner would be expected to act. How is this hard?

[kabar]

Nonsense. The cure's inventor would set the price, who, being a good and moral man, would set it to cover his costs, pay his workers, and provide a nice existence for himself. And, when need be, he would act in a charitable way, seeking out hard cases who couldn't even pay the fair price he asks for his cure and giving it to them gratis thereby earning the praise of his fellow men, good publicity for his business, and a treasure in heaven.

You don't understand capitalism or human nature. And what exactly is a "nice existence?" Does Bill Gates charge too much for his products given his immense fortune? Should the oil companies reduce their profit margins? Are billionaires good and moral people because they have much more than they need for a "nice existence?"

America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance -- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

AYN RAND, Capitalism: The Unknown Deal

Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtue, not vices. It is this superlatively moral system that the welfare statists propose to improve upon by means of preventative law, snooping bureaucrats, and the chronic goad of fear.

ALAN GREENSPAN, The Assault on Integrity