In an exchange,
the only just and honest course
would be for either party to demand only so much
as he considers his commodity to be worth,
allowance being made for trouble in acquisition,
scarcity, time spent and so forth, besides the subjective value.

As soon as you make your price
bear a relation to the other’s need,
you become a refined sort of robber and extortioner.

—If money is the sole medium of exchange,
we must remember that a shilling is by no means the same thing
in the hands of a rich heir, a farm laborer, a merchant,
and a university student.

It would be equitable
for everyone to receive much or little for his money,
according as he has done much or little to earn it.
In practice, as we all know, the reverse is the case.

In the world of high finance
the shilling of the idle rich man can buy more
than that of the poor, industrious man.

The Wanderer and his Shadow, by Nietzsche, supplement to Human All Too Human, trans. by Paul V. Cohn, aphorism 25

Highwayman is a term for a person who robs travelers, an activity rising from a period of lawlessness, the English restoration from the mid 17th century until the late 19th century. In the American west they were called “road agents.” “Your money or your life!” is mentioned in English trial reports from the mid-18th century. “Stand and deliver” is another phrase used from the 17th century to the 19th century. According to wikipedia this observation about English society in general during this period:

The historian Roy Porter described the use of direct, physical action as a hallmark of public and political life: “From the rough-house of the crowd to the dragoons’ musket volley, violence was as English as plum pudding. Force was used not just criminally, but as a matter of routine to achieve social and political goals, smudging hard-and-fast distinctions between the worlds of criminality and politics… Highwaymen were romanticized, with a hidden irony, as ‘gentlemen of the road.'”

For years I was responsible for leadership in a company. I could never resolve my discomfort with the capitalist principle of charging as much as the market could/would bear. The proposition felt inherently violent. The desire of another individual, a peer, is leveraged to my advantage. Are not food, shelter, and clothing “a living” universally required by all of us? Whereas the minimal need of each of us is roughly equal, how can I justify calibrating the worth of my service to you, to maximize my advantage, another term for profit? Laissez faire, unregulated capitalism is a market arena for thievery. The practice of “charging what the market will bear” is a gussied up convention of extortion. In terms of the widely accepted principle, exchange is biased to disfavor those with the least, and to favor the already well-to-do.

The years have passed. My thinking remains unchanged on the matter.