BLACK MARKET. - The buying and selling of goods in violation of rationing laws and at a price considerably higher than the official or normal price.
The black market is an immoral phenomenon, typical of wartime periods and economic emergencies. Its causes are the present hardships, the uncertainty of the future, the instability of the purchasing power of a currency, excessive rationing, the disproportion too pronounced between the total volume of rationed and controlled goods and the basic needs of the members of a community; and even more so the selfishness that manifests itself in the withholding of essential goods for the purpose of speculation or to satisfy secondary needs. The actual sociality of a people finds, in fact, its infallible index in the existence or absence of the black market and in the proportions it assumes in times of hardship.
The repressive measures enacted by various States against the black market are in direct proportion to the social conscience of their respective peoples. When manifestations of the black market are limited in number, it is not difficult to prosecute and effectively suppress them, also because in such a situation they already meet with severe condemnation in the citizens' conscience. If, however, they are numerous and widely spread, their effective repression becomes arduous and almost impossible. In this second case, as all relations of coexistence—especially economic ones—are disrupted, it becomes extremely difficult to determine the degree of immorality of the black market, which, having become a common practice among the vast majority of citizens, often ends up assuming the appearance of an ordinary measure of legitimate defense.