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Robin's logic only works if you think the existing distribution of wealth is equitable. If you think unjust systems and behavior led to the current distribution
by lukasb 12y ago
Robin's logic only works if you think the existing distribution of wealth is equitable. If you think unjust systems and behavior led to the current distribution, you would want to limit the extent to which wealth imbalance impacts the consumption of goods you consider essential.
- nhaehnle 12y agoPrecisely. To put a finer point on it: Imagine a disaster that seriously impacts food delivery for several days, e.g. while access roads are cleared of debris/snow/whatever. You want some reasonable mechanism that distributes food to people until normal operations can continue. Given wealth distributions as they exist today - i.e., unequitable ones - using flexible prices may lead to a situation where sufficiently rich people maintain their eating habits to an extent where not enough food can be provided to the poor, who are then likely to suffer entirely unnecessary deaths. An alternate system of explicit rationing, such as has been used during major wars, works better in such situations.
- penrod 12y agoThe horror - horror! - of rich people having more stuff than poor people is not alleviated by preventing prices from rising in times of scarcity - rich people can just pay others to stand in line for them. Equity of distribution doesn't strike me a particularly good metric for dealing with emergencies anyway since it's easily maximized by not letting anyone have anything, which is essentially what 'gouging' bans achieve.