Spoilers Below
The episode starts with Fluttershy feeding her cottage full of pet animals. When she gets to her pet Angel Bunny, he promptly refuses and demands poor Fluttershy make him a substantial, veggie sundae (with a cherry on top).
Following the theme song, Fluttershy is shown at the vegetable market with a list of ingredients to make Angel's sundae. Approaching the asparagus tent, she is promptly cut off 4 separate times which in her cute, timid, Fluttershy sort of way, she passively allows. Rarity and Pinkie Pie see poor Fluttershy and promptly step in to encourage her to stop being such a doormat and to be more assertive.
Rarity steps in and demonstrates being assertive by using her flirtatious charm to seduce a dorky looking stallion to trade her for the last bundle of asparagus which he purchased after cutting in front of Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie steps in and haggles with a pony selling tomatoes after she charges her 2 bits when Fluttershy assumed the price was only 1 bit which she says was the price the week prior (talk about price inflation!).
Fluttershy tries both techniques in vain, to attempt to purchase a cherry from a brutish, unshaven stallion running a cherry tent, only to be price gouged after admitting that she desperately needs the cherry (the last the stallion has). After the stallion offers the cherry for a price Fluttershy can't afford, another pony walks in and takes it, offering the stallion only 2 bits for it.
Distraught and with her Angel dissatisfied with the sundae (which was only lacking a cherry), Fluttershy opens her mail to find a brochure for "Iron Will's Assertiveness Seminar" which upon reading, she vows to never be a pushover again.
At the seminar, Iron Will, a Minotaur with a personality that is a cross between Hulk Hogan, Mr. T and Richard Simons demonstrates his "assertiveness" techniques with a guarantee that if anypony is not 100% satisfied with his techniques, they pay nothing. Calling for volunteers, Iron Will calls out Fluttershy specifically where he promptly shows that his assertiveness techniques basically consist of narcissistic bullying. Fluttershy goes along (and to the delight of the brony community I'm sure, revives "Flutterb*tch").
The next day, Fluttershy goes about her business in town and repeatedly use Iron Will's techniques into bullying other ponies to get her way. However, she takes it too far, and ends up badly insulting Rarity and Pinkie Pie, who try to reason with her. Looking at her reflection in a puddle, Fluttershy realises that she has become a monster and locks herself away in her cottage.
A short while later, Rarity and Pinkie Pie walk up to Fluttershy's boarded and dilapidated looking cottage. The good friends they are, they tell her to come out, that everything is ok and that there are ways to be assertive without hurting other pony's feelings. At the same time, Iron Will arrives at Fluttershy's cottage demanding payment with his over the top, aggressive, assertive manner.
Fluttershy comes out and tells Iron Will she will not pay him anything, as she is not 100% satisfied and at his seminar, he said no pony would pay anything if they were not 100% satisfied. Iron Will, perplexed, leaves without payment and Fluttershy ends off with her letter to the Princess. She shares her lesson that standing up for oneself doesn't mean changing one's personality and that a pony can be assertive without being unpleasant or mean.
End Spoilers
This has to be one of the most capitalism laden episode of MLP Season 2 since the Super Cider Squeezy 6000.
Fluttershy's entire sequence in the Ponyville Farmers Market really demonstrate many important elements of capitalism. First off, the portrayal of free trade between ponies demonstrate perfectly why capitalism works well at ensuring the most equitable distribution of goods. Free markets are not perfect at ensuring universally equitable distribution, but that is because the physical reality of the world itself is imperfect in terms of supply and demand distribution. That said, the magic of capitalism is the most equitable and fairest system to ensure the best distribution is accomplished over any other system, especially socialism.
In a free market, producers of goods set a price they agree to part with their goods. In Ponyville, this is the case with all the vegetable tents Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity went to. Consumers then have the choice to pay that demanded price, negotiate a better price, or not buy their goods. This flies in the face of the western world where in some industries (health care, for example) producers have no freedom to set prices and consumers have no choice but to pay the price the government sets.
Socialists argue that it's not right that some ponies can't get their fair share and that everypony should get the same amount. Unfortunately just as there is literally no way, when there are 5 bundles of asparagus and 6 ponies for every pony to get a full bundle, there is no way when there are enough doctors to service 5 people and 6 people that every person can see a doctor.
There needs to be 6 bundles of asparagus, or enough doctors to see 6 people. Unfortunately, socialism removes the mechanism which encourages there to be more doctors (profit/loss motive), whereas capitalism is based entirely on it.
Similarly, socialists argue that individual producers with a monopoly on a product unfairly rob people by making profit off their needs. In a socialist system, this is correct but only because socialism itself eliminates competition which would otherwise prevent monopolies from forming in the first place.
In a free market, the tomato tent Fluttershy visited demonstrates this point perfectly. The pony charging 3 tomatoes for 2 bits was basically advertising that any pony willing to produce and sell tomatoes for less could position themselves very well in the market. If another enterprising pony had the idea to sell 4 tomatoes for 2 bits, they would put the original pony out of business unless she did something to alter the market.
Her only legitimate choices would be have to reduce her prices to compete or to advertise to try to attract more customers. Here I will say is one area where government has a legitimate function, to prevent market participants from taking illegitimate action such as libel, fraud, or even violence against others. The government itself, however has no right to perpetrate these same actions to attempt to stop them (something western politicians generally do not comprehend).
In the absence of competition from other producers, consumers themselves have recourse against producers who monopolise a market. They themselves can negotiate with those producers for a better price (as Pinkie Pie well demonstrated at the Tomato tent) or they can simply refuse to purchase their goods (as Rarity demonstrated at the Cherry tent). Either way, the argument that it's unfair that producers charge too much for a good is moot, given that consumers themselves have recourse against them.
Sadly, most socialists themselves are like Fluttershy in the start of this episode. Unwilling to be put their hooves down, willing to let themselves be extorted. Socialists do not believe in individual self interest. If they did they would be more assertive about their own interests, instead of cowardly requiring a collective consciousness to dictate to them how to think and act and to believe such a collective has the right to forcefully take from those who are assertive about their own interests.
Being assertive itself does not mean being a bully, liar, or trickster. It requires a genuine desire to look after one's self interest. That in itself is the epitome of capitalism and by the magic of capitalism, those who are assertive in the spirit of friendship thrive and prosper like Fluttershy, while those who are assertive with a mean, greedy spirit walk away empty hooved like Iron Will.
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