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Once more into the breach!
1) "Do you then assume that luxury goods like Ferraris should not be made, because they are not affordable by the wider market?"
Are you referring to what is legal? I have never suggested that money grubbing should be illegal. I just think that it is legitimate to point it out when it occurs.
2) ""Bean counters" do what the name implies. They count the beans. It isn't normally their job to make the decisions you might count as "money grubbing" - only to provide the information on which the folks who do make those decisions base their judgments."
No point in quibbling over slang. I have often seen the decision makers of corporations referred to as bean counters. I think that typically they are the corporations whose CEO is a former CFO. I've often seen such references to the management of the record companies in comparison to the management of the record companies of fifty years ago.
3) "Right now, the US economic system is a modified form of capitalism, and I don't see that changing. What "ism" would you substitute?"
Patricia posted for me some works on Distributism earlier this year. AJ Penty, GK Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc. Also Rerum Novarum. I'd like to see how those ideas could be implemented in the US.
4) "What happens when "sufficient profit to remain a going concern" results in prices you don't like and consider price gouging?"
Then it's not price gouging. I've never said that just because I think a price is too high for me it should be considered gouging.
5) "How would you respond if I accused you of "price gouging" and "money grubbing", because I didn't like the rate you quoted me for your services?"
I've never been in a position where I controlled the supply or cornered the market. Just because someone doesn't like my fee wouldn't make it gouging. But if I were the only attorney licensed by the state to perform a particular function within a county, and the state refused to certify any other attorney, and if my fee were then unaffordable for all except the well to do, then that would be price gouging.
What would I do? I would lower my fee to make it affordable for the population. But that's my moral code. I wouldn't price gouge.
6) "Pricing is what the market will bear, and the market bears that price."
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the price reflects what the publisher thinks he can get for it. The publisher may be wrong. In the real world, the publisher does not necessarily lower the price to maximize his profit. Competency cannot be assumed, particularly when there is a monopoly on the product such as a specific book title.
Correct me if I misread you, but it appears to me that you believe that what the market decides is just. For example, you would consider the price which maximizes the publisher's profit to be just, even if it were too high for the general public, wouldn't you? As I've stated elsewhere (above, I think), we have in the US a public policy of encouraging everyone to read, and a price point which limits books to the well to do violates that public policy. I would consider such a price to be unjust. Particularly in the case of books which are "classics", which you say Catch-22 is.
7) "Most of discussions like this stem from unhappiness that the ebook issued at the same time as the hardcover carries a higher price than the mass market paperback edition that will follow."
I've never had a problem with high eBook prices for brand new books.
It does appear to me that the Agency 5 have colluded to fix prices, however, because I understand that all of their eBooks of their new best sellers have the same price ($12). The posts here complain about the price point, but what concerns me is that it is the same for all five Agency publishers. I suspect collusion.
8) "If I'm willing to wait a bit, the chances are good my library can get something for me."
That's great news for you! You live in New York City, don't you? That scenario has never been my experience.
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