Price Gouging - Fair and balanced, or unfair

[Berzerker]

UR -

Yes. That's what happens when a new market opens up. As time goes by, though, new players would enter a market if it is profitable, so eventually a perfectly competitive market is reached. Clearly, that is not a good situation for companies, thus, they would attempt to convert it to a monopolistic competitive market, at the very least.

You're right about participants in the market trying to corrupt it to benefit themselves, but the state is their vehicle - the alleged solution to free market "corruption". Companies large enough to be called a monopoly are either extorted by politicians or bribing them for favors and ill-treatment for their competition. In this so-called free market economy we have quotas and tariffs on all sorts of imports so our own producers can charge us more and the poor have an even higher cost of living all in the name of fairness.

The problem with this view is you forgot that a company is entirely a social constract. Only through special permission granted by a society could a company be established.

Why would I and my friend need your permission to provide someone else with a service or product? Aren't you kinda butting in? When those first two people made a deal, did they ask around for permission?

As part of the deal, a company agrees to be abide by any laws and regulations such a society may want to apply as conditions for such a permission.

"Society" doesn't do anything and this "deal" was imposed by others. Might does not make right...

[Berzerker]

Kuci -

Realist? Moderate libertarian? Free-market liberal? Practical?

Libertarians are free market liberals so you'll have to fill in the blank yourself.

It's not arbitrary at all.

Yes it is, you don't want people imposing their morality on you so why would you do that to others? Fairness and morality are entirely too subjective to form the basis of law...

I don't give a **** about fairness, it's a simple calculation that there's so much more good to be done by forcing you to sell your wares at normal price that it justifies that. Just like I support the draft, and progressive income taxes, and anti-trust... I'm not an absolutist.

That isn't about fairness? You are an absolutist, we are to follow your orders... absolutely.

"The good of society must prevail over the good of the individual" - Benito Mussolini

[Kidlicious]

np

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Kuci -

Libertarians are free market liberals so you'll have to fill in the blank yourself.

Libertarians are absolutist, extreme free market liberals.

Yes it is, you don't want people imposing their morality on you so why would you do that to others? Fairness and morality are entirely too subjective to form the basis of law...

Again, I don't give a **** about fairness. And morality is the basis of law - even the laws you proposed are based on a particular morality.

That isn't about fairness? You are an absolutist, we are to follow your orders... absolutely.

Which is of course why I simply propose a somewhat moderated version of your philosophy?

"The good of society must prevail over the good of the individual" - Benito Mussolini

The good of society must prevail over the good of an individual; however, the good of the individual is the good of society.

[Kidlicious]

Berz,

Clean your PMs

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Hotel owners have the freedom to charge what they want even if it's gouging and people in the area can report it to news outlets and boycott the hotel owners.
In a free market consumers will react negatively to such immorality just as they do now and those businesses will end up paying in the long run.

A commitment to freedom allows others to do things we often find immoral. You claim we like it? Of course we don't, but when a reaction to an immoral act is far worse, then we have a problem.

- "Charge what we say or we'll throw you in a cage or a coffin and take your money".

I caught you! You admit that price gouging is immoral. How can that be if the buyers aren't coerced.

[Kuciwalker]

Because he's talking about his personal morality. Something can be immoral, under that, without coercion. For instance, I'd say insulting someone was immoral, but shouldn't be illegal and isn't coercion.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Price Gouging - Fair and balanced, or unfair

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Ah, so prices set by some group of party apparachiki regardless of costs, supply or demand are "fair" while prices set in an appropriately regulated open market aren't fair.

Sorry for all the would-be state welfare sponges, but "fair" price doesn't mean "dirt cheap subsidized by the state off of someone else's back" price.

omg. Fair isn't some arbitrary price either, and stop saying I support a welfare state.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Because he's talking about his personal morality. Something can be immoral, under that, without coercion. For instance, I'd say insulting someone was immoral, but shouldn't be illegal and isn't coercion.

So if you pay me for work less than that work is worth, you are acting immoral if I can find no better work?

[Kidlicious]

Re: doo-DOO-doo-DOO You are now entering... the Commie Zone

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I love how Commies convenient invent concepts or redefine standard terms the same way Scientologists do. It shows that the validity of both of those systems is about the same.

I'm not calling economic profit price gouging, but the difference is only a matter of degree. If you call price gouging immoral than economic profit must be at least a little immoral, and you have no justification for it.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Capitalism is in no way dependent on price gouging. Price gouging can only occur in a market with an imbalance between supply and demand, which is not a normal condition in a free market.

Economic profit is a normal occurence, and you have to justify it. Calling price gouging immoral but not economic profit is weak to say the least.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
In most markets at most times, there are multiple resource providers and multiple alternative resources (including a no use alternative) such that there is a balance between supply and demand on average.

Not really. The more stable prices and markets are those which are least competitive. When you have competition your supply tends to change frequently, as opposed to having less competition.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Which "mainstream theory" is that? AFAIK, even the neoclassicists admitted that government regulations were necessary. The appearance of monopolies, oligopolies and cartels destroyed the regulatory ability of a market.

There's only one mainstream theory. That's neoclassical. You're misunderstanding this. I looked it up.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
No one ever said freedom was perfect but it sure is a helluva lot better than employing a state to run around threatening us with violence for not charging a "fair" price... Look at how many laws we have now and we started down that path with the "life should be fair" delusion.

No. Freedom is perfect. You have to know what it is first, before you can get it though.

[Berzerker]

Kuci -

Libertarians are absolutist, extreme free market liberals.

There is no such thing as "extreme" freedom, either freedom exists or it doesn't. In a liberal free market I can't go around deciding what hotel owners charge or what people pay to rent rooms...

Kid -

I caught you! You admit that price gouging is immoral. How can that be if the buyers aren't coerced.

Immoral behavior need not be coercive...

So if you pay me for work less than that work is worth, you are acting immoral if I can find no better work?

I wouldn't be paying you if your work combined with my work brought me no profit... Why should you be the only making money off the deal? Wouldn't that mean you are exploiting me even worse according to your ideology? I invest my time to accumulate wealth to buy machinery and you invest your time via labor skills and we both make money, but apparently you think only you should get money out of the arrangement?

No. Freedom is perfect. You have to know what it is first, before you can get it though.

And freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. I put a gun to your head and tell you what to do and that's coercion; I pull the trigger and that is a constraint...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
I wouldn't be paying you if your work combined with my work brought me no profit... Why should you be the only making money off the deal? Wouldn't that mean you are exploiting me even worse according to your ideology? I invest my time to accumulate wealth to buy machinery and you invest your time via labor skills and we both make money, but apparently you think only you should get money out of the arrangement?

You're just saying that any wage that a owner and a worker agree on is fair again because the worker agreed to it. You always insist (except in this case) that if two people agree on a price that it is fair. Don't pull this, it's my property crap. That's a strawman. I'm never going to let this go either.

Originally posted by Berzerker
And freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. I put a gun to your head and tell you what to do and that's coercion; I pull the trigger and that is a constraint...

I know that's your definition, so it's no wonder that you don't even see that as perfect.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Kuci -

There is no such thing as "extreme" freedom, either freedom exists or it doesn't. In a liberal free market I can't go around deciding what hotel owners charge or what people pay to rent rooms...

There is such a thing as an extreme free market. You can have limited government intervention and still call it a free market, because it still acts pretty much the same.

(This is different from OPEC, where it's actual government industry. There, it isn't a free market at all.)