Horse Hockey. If the Publisher is selling to the end customer THEN he gets to set the price. However it is the Retailer that decides what price he wants to sell it for. If the Publisher doesn't like the price the Retailer sells it at he has the right not to deal with the retailer.
No horse hockey.
If a publisher expects $X for said book, Amazon sells it for less than X, then what does the publisher get? THAT is horse hockey.
Now - say this same publisher wants to be paid $10 for each book - then Amazon should set the offer price at a point that gives the publisher $10. IF the book does not sell at that price, then so be it. The publisher then has to determine if they will accept a lower price.
And that is what publishers were trying to do when Amazon decided to arbitrarily set prices, then penalize publishers who wanted higher prices. They went to Apple who agreed to the Publisher’s desires. Now Amazon is miffed and pulled some strings in the DOJ.