Is Damien Hirst overturning the laws of economics, as well as the rules of the art market, as you innocently claim in your three-page review of his latest tricks? (“The Shark’s Last Move,” September 13, 2008). I very much doubt it. To begin with, he has switched from gallerists to auctioneers, but he has not skipped the middlemen. Not in the least. The auctioneers only have a wider reach than the gallerists, which is as it should be in the era of capitalism without borders. In this regard Sotheby’s or Christie’s undoubtedly beat Hirst’s trusted gallerists, Larry Gagosian and Jay Jopling of New York and London, who are comfortable mainly with American and European wealthy clients. What do the vaunted gallerists know about collectors in Russia, China, or India, where the riches are being piled up at an unprecedented rate at this historical juncture? But the rules of the game are still the same as in Thorstein Veblen’s time, when he forged the term “conspicuous consumption” to explain the lavish spending on luxury goods by the rich upstarts a century ago. The only difference is the greater reach of the global art market, as well as the lower depths of distaste among the new upstarts. All else is precisely the same. The laws of economics and the rules of the art market are perfectly safe and sound, thank you.