The just price: a market-process account

Abstract When is a price just? This paper develops a new theory of justice in pricing, grounded in the Austrian market process tradition. Prices, I argue, are not merely outcomes to be evaluated against an external standard of fairness. They are instruments through which the competitive process performs morally significant functions: communicating information, generating incentives and coordinating the plans of millions under pervasive ignorance. When this process is operating, the prices it produces carry a genuine presumption of justice. I establish this claim through two complementary arguments and demonstrate its power across cases from price gouging to wages to monopoly.