As and when the attributes of a population change it’s easy enough to see that the things desired by that population might change. Say, longer lifespans moving the seaside holiday market from something like Club 18-30 to Saga. Or, possibly, immigration over the decades changing the average melanin enhancement of said population.

The question then being, well, how is that change in desires to be assuaged?

The UK’s largest retailer Tesco is introducing a range of plasters to match different skin colours and better reflect racial and ethnic diversity.

In a supermarket first, its new own-brand fabric plasters, available in light, medium and dark shades, go on sale in all 741 Tesco stores nationwide and online from Monday.

Tesco developed the plasters after a member of staff spotted a now-viral tweet last year, when a black American man described his emotional response when he first used a plaster on his cut finger that matched his skin tone.

Tesco has done this because they expect to make money from it. If they don’t, ah well, no great harm done, plasters are going to be dyed one colour or another after all. The experiment will have been carried out. If it does make money then all other retailers will follow because capitalists are not only greedy but observant.

The same is - has been as well - true of hair care products, make up colours and so on. People have noted that they can make money out of catering to these previously non-extant desires among the British population. Thereby those desires get assuaged. Pretty neat system, eh? Something only comes into existence when people want it and does so when they do.

We might note that the NHS, that glorious and wholly planned system, is not providing such plasters - and, we’d assume, won’t be for some time.

Vespasian pointed out that pecunia non olet and it’s that same idea applying here. Money has no colour which is why capitalist and market systems cater so well - better than any other system - to the variability of the population and the variances in their desires.

Sure, it’s possible to complain that it should have happened already, these differently hued plasters, but do note that no planned or any other system did it before markets, fueled by the desire for other peoples’ cash, did so.