4 ms·

>Price gouging incentivizes creative and extreme tactics to increase the supply of a scarce good. And even when supply is inherently fixed, it at the very least

>Price gouging incentivizes creative and extreme tactics to increase the supply of a scarce good. And even when supply is inherently fixed, it at the very least gives you a clean way (even if it's not necessarily fair or good) to figure out who gets the last 10 bottles of water. If we're willing to discard fair and good there are plenty of "clean" ways to distribute water that aren't gouging. >If you create a law that bans me from selling water for $99, I'm not going to be able to do any of that. Not only am I no longer incentivized to drop everything and spend a week organizing a water supply chain, even if I was incentivized I don't have the kind of budget I need to get water bottles into a city that's underwater. Good. Listen markets work in certain situations but maybe it's time we stop trying to marketize everything. Disasters are not your business opportunity. This is firmly in the government's realm and we should ask government to do more. If our social contract is a kind of insurance on the harshness of nature then it's hard to see a situation more deserving of government intervention than a natural disaster. This is the exact same problem we have with healthcare: find a market where people need your product to live, push that price up as high as you can. Charging the needy $100 for water is sick and reminds me of a Galbraith quote, namely that you are: engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

sbenitoj 9y ago
Just because you don't like how markets work doesn't mean a market failure has occurred. If you would like goods to sell at lower prices during times of crisis, you are free to start stockpiling them now (or convincing others to do so) and selling them the next time a crisis arises. We don't need to bring coercion (AKA govt) into the equation, you can meet your own needs for creating a world that seems "fair" to you without resorting to violence.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  I'm not denying how markets work... I'm denying that we should rely on them in a crisis like this. >We don't need to bring coercion (AKA govt) into the equation, you can meet your own needs for creating a world that seems "fair" to you without resorting to violence. Oh put the talking points away. Why don't you go ask some disaster survivors which is more violent: $100 for water sold privately by a gouger or government provided water? This is exactly the situation that government is created for.
  - sbenitoj 9y ago
    What is your definition of violence? You'll have to explain how voluntarily buying water and then selling it to a willing buyer is violent.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      I'm not defining violence, I'm not even posing an answer to the question. I'm suggesting that you go ask some survivors what they think. I'm sure there are a few hard Mises-lovers who may agree with you but I think the vast, vast majority is going to disagree with you. Maybe you can tell them that government is violence and that all liberty is economic liberty and that $100 water during a disaster is proof that they live in a free society and maybe you can record it because I'd really like to see the responses.
      - sbenitoj 9y ago
        Well, FWIW, I live in Houston, just endured Harvey, my car was totaled and part of my house was flooded -- still luckier than many people no doubt -- but even after having gone through this disaster, I STILL believe that coercion is wrong. I'm not against private charity, or communities voluntarily coming together to prepare for the next disaster, but that doesn't justify using coercion.
        frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        Alright, well I'm sorry about your property but I'm still gonna ask you to go to those bad areas and ask them which is more violent, price-gouged water or government assistance.
      - sbenitoj 9y ago
        It won't let me respond to your comment below ("Alright, well I'm sorry about your property but I'm still gonna ask you to go to those bad areas and ask them which is more violent, price-gouged water or government assistance.") so I'm doing it here. Again I ask you to define the term violence. Because you're saying violence, but I don't see what is violent about charging a high price for something, so that's why I'm asking you to define violence, otherwise how can anyone have a reasonable debate about what's actually occurring?
- threatofrain 9y ago
  You're confusing violence with coercion. Violence cares about physicality; coercion does not. While others may think the distinction is too thin to care, I care to elaborate on the nuance, so I prefer to have two terms for what I see as two concepts. An intersection exists somewhere, but not all violence is coercive, and not all coercion is violent. When the government collects taxes from you, it is coercive. The underlying threat of violence is gated far from you. Imagine a government that didn't understand the full range of coercion, and only had violence in its tool bin for collecting government revenue. Then you wouldn't need two separate terms, as the government clearly isn't seeing any nuance either.
  - sbenitoj 9y ago
    Fair point! The broader point I'm trying to make is that violence (or the threat of violence) is wrong in all cases except self-defense (including the protection of private property).
polotics 9y ago
Shorthand: Market economy is best, market society is less...
clinta 9y ago
Let's suppose that it is government's charter to make sure that those who need water get it in a time of emergency. Restricting prices does not do anything to solve that issue. It exacerbates it by removing incentives for the market to get more water into the area. If this is government's charter, then government should seek to solve this issue by trucking in additional water to help alleviate the shortage and reduce prices naturally. Either directly, or by paying private firms the market price to truck it in and distribute it for free based on some criteria of neediness. I still don't think this is an ideal solution, but it is far preferable to government restricting prices and falsely claiming that will have any positive effect.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Your missing that the government inherits a duty to provide services to the profiteers who manage to get themselves stuck or otherwise in trouble, as well as wasting resources on things like tax and health enforcement.

sbenitoj 9y ago

Just because you don't like how markets work doesn't mean a market failure has occurred. If you would like goods to sell at lower prices during times of crisis, you are free to start stockpiling them now (or convincing others to do so) and selling them the next time a crisis arises. We don't need to bring coercion (AKA govt) into the equation, you can meet your own needs for creating a world that seems "fair" to you without resorting to violence.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
I'm not denying how markets work... I'm denying that we should rely on them in a crisis like this. >We don't need to bring coercion (AKA govt) into the equation, you can meet your own needs for creating a world that seems "fair" to you without resorting to violence. Oh put the talking points away. Why don't you go ask some disaster survivors which is more violent: $100 for water sold privately by a gouger or government provided water? This is exactly the situation that government is created for.
- sbenitoj 9y ago
  What is your definition of violence? You'll have to explain how voluntarily buying water and then selling it to a willing buyer is violent.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    I'm not defining violence, I'm not even posing an answer to the question. I'm suggesting that you go ask some survivors what they think. I'm sure there are a few hard Mises-lovers who may agree with you but I think the vast, vast majority is going to disagree with you. Maybe you can tell them that government is violence and that all liberty is economic liberty and that $100 water during a disaster is proof that they live in a free society and maybe you can record it because I'd really like to see the responses.
    - sbenitoj 9y ago
      Well, FWIW, I live in Houston, just endured Harvey, my car was totaled and part of my house was flooded -- still luckier than many people no doubt -- but even after having gone through this disaster, I STILL believe that coercion is wrong. I'm not against private charity, or communities voluntarily coming together to prepare for the next disaster, but that doesn't justify using coercion.
      - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        Alright, well I'm sorry about your property but I'm still gonna ask you to go to those bad areas and ask them which is more violent, price-gouged water or government assistance.
    - sbenitoj 9y ago
      It won't let me respond to your comment below ("Alright, well I'm sorry about your property but I'm still gonna ask you to go to those bad areas and ask them which is more violent, price-gouged water or government assistance.") so I'm doing it here. Again I ask you to define the term violence. Because you're saying violence, but I don't see what is violent about charging a high price for something, so that's why I'm asking you to define violence, otherwise how can anyone have a reasonable debate about what's actually occurring?
threatofrain 9y ago
You're confusing violence with coercion. Violence cares about physicality; coercion does not. While others may think the distinction is too thin to care, I care to elaborate on the nuance, so I prefer to have two terms for what I see as two concepts. An intersection exists somewhere, but not all violence is coercive, and not all coercion is violent. When the government collects taxes from you, it is coercive. The underlying threat of violence is gated far from you. Imagine a government that didn't understand the full range of coercion, and only had violence in its tool bin for collecting government revenue. Then you wouldn't need two separate terms, as the government clearly isn't seeing any nuance either.
- sbenitoj 9y ago
  Fair point! The broader point I'm trying to make is that violence (or the threat of violence) is wrong in all cases except self-defense (including the protection of private property).

polotics 9y ago

Shorthand: Market economy is best, market society is less...

clinta 9y ago

Let's suppose that it is government's charter to make sure that those who need water get it in a time of emergency. Restricting prices does not do anything to solve that issue. It exacerbates it by removing incentives for the market to get more water into the area. If this is government's charter, then government should seek to solve this issue by trucking in additional water to help alleviate the shortage and reduce prices naturally. Either directly, or by paying private firms the market price to truck it in and distribute it for free based on some criteria of neediness. I still don't think this is an ideal solution, but it is far preferable to government restricting prices and falsely claiming that will have any positive effect.

Spooky23 9y ago
Your missing that the government inherits a duty to provide services to the profiteers who manage to get themselves stuck or otherwise in trouble, as well as wasting resources on things like tax and health enforcement.