Price gouging preferable to eye gouging

[archerships]

We're seeing lot's of indignation over so-called "price gouging" right now. What you don't see is much discussion of how goods would be allocated in the absence of "price gouging". As politisheep points out:

"...In the absence of gouging using money, people gouge the old-fashioned way: with their fists or with weapons.

I can't win in a fistfight. I don't own a firearm. With scarcity of something desperately needed, money is my only shot at getting it; I can't beat up the guy in front of me for it.

More importantly, I have to ask myself how I'd prefer that the guy in front of me beat me out for a needed, scarce item. Would I prefer he paid the guy money I don't have and can't compete with? Or would I prefer he punched me in the head and kicked me in the ribs? Would I prefer being shot over being outbid on that last cab ride home?

Easy, easy, easy call. I prefer price gouging, even if the result is that I'm priced out of a particular good."

Comments

[mindwalker.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Unfortunately, some people are willing to use their fists even with free market pricing. One day, a few days after 9/11, I was in a gas station, and the customer in front of me was complaining about some other stores engaging in "price gouging." I decided to contribute my two cents, saying that the gas station owners should be allowed to charge whatever they want for the gas, and people are free to do business with them or not. The man said something to the effect of "well they may have that right, but I also have the right to put my fist in their face." Lunacy!

I'm afraid a lot of people have that same attitude. That's why it's important to keep explaining frequently why price controls are so bad and why they create scarcity rather than magically eliminate it.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. Most people seem incapable of recognizing the second (and third, and fourth) order implications of their actions.

[twaj.livejournal.com]

Maybe people will want to start living in cities again instead of boring sprawled out suburbs. Maybe we can use the new Supreme Court precedent to kick the blacks out, because white families = higher real estate prices = more tax money.

[nelliebelle.livejournal.com]

damn. i'm petite and poor so i'm pretty much fucked.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

There's always prostitution!

Oh, wait. I guess that still means you're fucked.

But at least you get to set the price!

[twaj.livejournal.com]

better price gouging than a voucher system like they had in WW2 and the 70's oil crisis.

[bigleeh.livejournal.com]

But don't you understand that if you let one supplier engage in price gouging then pretty soon they will all be gouging and the next thing you know people from all over the country will be rushing in with supplies so they can do some gouging, too? Before you know it, the gougers -- in their blind greed -- will have used up the whole crisis and there will be enough so that even the poor, the petite, and the lightly armed can get what they need.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Agreed.