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… is from pages 60-61 of George Stigler [2]‘s November 1959 Quarterly Journal of Economics paper, “The Politics of Political Economists [3],” as reprinted in Stigler’s 1965 collection, Essays in the History of Economics [4] (link added):
An equally apt example of the effect of economic analysis [at sharpening one’s understanding of reality] was given by Edwin Cannan [5]. Consider the perennial charge of profiteering that is levied at the producers or owners of commodities in relatively short supply. As Cannan pointed out, this is a singularly perverse distribution of blame. The only way in which the supplier can benefit by a high price is by selling the commodity, that is, by making the supply larger. If there is a shortage of meat, then we should blame everyone except the members of the livestock industry, for everyone else is not producing the meat which we desire in larger quantities.
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