Re: Price gouging is beneficial. Price gouging is great!

Said  Capitalist Pig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> :

 
>The principle I start with, and one I am not willing to reject, is
>that individuals own themselves. Based on this principle, it's not
>difficult to conclude that price gouging is not immoral and should be
>illegal.

Go live in a desert island, then. Fend for yourself. Stop using our
roads, our police, our utility systems, our job markets, our financial
markets, our governments. Stop using our internet. 

Price gouging is not an issue - market freedom is. In a truly free
market there's COMPETITION, and you gouge your prices at your own
risk, and serve you right because consumers will go elsewhere. 

However, we don't have free markets, right ? We have oligopolies and
monopolies, and it's becoming perfectly acceptable to remove the
freedom of a market by letting a few corner it and control it. 

If a company can survive by gouging prices, that's a sure sign that
the market's no longer free - and hence it ain't capitalism any
longer, but an ugly and harmful distortion thereof. 


Alberto.