system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is Supply and Demand a law that is only valid within our current economic system or is it an actual natural law?

Probably a very stupid question and even more philosophical than economic, but are there theories or even proof that Supply and Demand is a law that applies to nature as well?
gpt
What an interesting question! One way to look at the law of supply and demand is as a law about what the **optimal quantity** to be supplied based on the benefits to the supplier is. If the supplier produces more than that quantity, they will either have a surplus, meaning unnecessary costs, or reduced benefit, since it will have to discount the supply to get rid of all of it. If a supplier produces too little, they miss out on potential benefits.  
From the perspective of the consumer, if they consume below the optimal quantity, they're missing out on a trade that would make them better off. If they over consume, they have spent more resources than they like.

To see how this might play out in nature, consider a flowering tree and a bee. The bees are consumers, using energy to fly from flower to flower (price) in order to consume nectar from the flowers. The tree is the supplier, using energy to produce flowers, and gaining the benefit of pollination from the bees (price). If the tree produces too many flowers, the bees will only visit the easiest ones, so there is a surplus. The law of supply and demand doesn't say that the tree will produce the right number of flowers, or that the bee will visit the right number, just that there is an equilibrium value.