Pity the poor rich: they’re always getting ripped off.

So Noka’s just re-labeled Bonnat. More than half the chocolate world fronts for someone else too. Scharffen-Berger’s assortments were made by Joseph Schmidt (obeying the boss... Hershey’s corporate command). Think the venerable Michael Recchiuti makes his own bars? Guittard does private labeling for a slew of respected companies. Whispers circulate that even Amedei outsources the real craft of its product.

Noka simply does what 21st century America is geared for: promotional branding. Does that comport with Aristotle’s notion of a just price based on ethical notions of a moral economy rather than one determined by the forces of supply & demand? Only if re-defining the terms ‘economic justice’. Few companies in the New Economy manufacture anything in the old sense. Before the Grand Inquisition burns her at the stake in the blogosphere, the proprietress of Noka does enjoy a privileged relationship with Bonnat & her collection is made-to-order, according to specifications in which she herself has input, that accounts for some value-add to differentiate it from Bonnat’s own line... however minimally. (Chocolate Fryers/Friars: please refrain from running to Voiron, France & asking for the same; the arrangement apparently is an exclusive).

Noka concocts for the fatally rich who’ve the need to play with fire by burning their money. Selling thimble-sized chocolates, at a cost seemingly pegged to the price of gold bouillon, housed in a polished chrome case that promotes the kind of waste exhibited writ large on golf courses, amounts to sound business practice – if you can get away with it... by preying on the rich. The scale & cost becomes bonoxious, which makes it all the more imminently marketable & coveted because a dictum of Adam Smith, the father of Homo economicus: a basic part of human nature involves ‘truck & barter’, often for material things that serve, like speech, expressive ends above & beyond any exchange or monetary value. For instance, status symbols procured during ritualistic shopping sprees.