It seems to me that part of the argument is people will charge what they can get away with rather than what they actually need to cover costs and a reasonable p

It seems to me that part of the argument is people will charge what they can get away with rather than what they actually need to cover costs and a reasonable profit. Key bottlenecks become an opportunity for price gouging, causing ripple effects. Money is impacted by human choice and human psychology. You can't neatly separate it from human behavior and impulses like greed. It's grounded in history and historic success and the details make more sense to me than the less nuanced usual explanations that seem rooted in a damned if you do, damned if you don't mentality. /not an economist