[Avodah] economics 101

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Thu Jan 10 03:20:57 PST 2013


On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 09:42:00AM +0100, Arie Folger wrote:
: There is a din Torah of prohibiting onaah. That concept is NOT RELATED TO
: PROFITS, but to market proces, which is set by supply and demand...
: Then, there is a different sugya, which is no longer in force, and that is
: that our Sages wanted to guarantee that foods remain affordable AND
: available....

As I said, I don't see them as the same din, but I also fail to see
how you consider them unrelated. (Which is what I asked Zev in my prior
post on the thread.) As I read the Rosh (and the Me'iri's word choice),
Shemuel is discussing a derabbanan definition / extension of ona'ah.

But the Me'iri explains BM 40b in terms of ona'ah. He opens, "Hamokheir
tzarikh sheyimkor be'emunah uvelo ona'ah...."

I also fail to see how you're defining profit. The SA (CM 231:20) quotes
the Rosh (unattributed, but on our daf) that applies Shmuel's idea in
relation to sha'ar. Isn't that the same standard as the deOraisa, but
here applied derabbnan to how much markup one may add for labor?

So that in effect, even on a high-labor item, if it's a necessity the
most you can charge is 1/3 above sha'ar -- 1/6 mide'Oraisa for parts,
and 1/6 a derabbanan limit on labor. Whereas if it's a non-necessity,
then you can charge what you want for labor, and it it's a low-labor
item, necessity or not, such that it's meaningless to charge for the
effort of selling it you can only charge up to 1/6 above.

But in any case, how can the deOraisa limiting sell price in relation
to value /not/ limit profit? You must be discussing something different
than I'm thinking because I'm misunderstanding what is meant by the word
"profit".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Take time,
micha at aishdas.org        be exact,
http://www.aishdas.org   unclutter the mind.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm



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