Comment by Gibbon1

When I was at that tender age when many nerdy boys read and fall to Atlas Shrugged I read The Pearl by Steinbeck. Which has a passage I never forgot.

“It was supposed that the pearl buyers were individuals acting alone, bidding against one another for the pearls the fishermen brought in. And once it had been so. But this was a wasteful method, for often, in the excitement of bidding for a fine pearl, too great a price had been paid to the fisherman. This was extravagant and not to be countenanced. Now there was only one pearl buyer with many hands"