There are a number of problems with price gouging. First, it isn't helpful, everyone already knows there's a shortage of critical supplies, and increasing the price by several multiples isn't going to help make more products faster.
Second, it encourages bubbles. People will begin to purchase items that are in short supply specifically to resell them later at a higher price. This actively prevents critical supplies from reaching people in a timely fashion, which can and does result in preventable deaths.
Third, it threatens social stability in stressful times. The people hording supplies are at risk of causing violent encounters with those who need them. And a shootout or riot is the last thing we need right now.
Overall, I think it's pretty easy to see why people oppose price gouging. I'm honestly surprised anyone would defend such actions.
Not for things that do not need to make a profit. See: essentials like healthcare, housing, and basic food items.
The flaws of that system are becoming clearer and clearer, not that you'd see it from the responses you're getting.
"If people can't pay for housing, they deserve to be homeless! If people can't pay for healthcare, they deserve to be sick and die! Without a profit motive, we cannot do anything for our fellow man! It would be immoral to serve without profit, or to look for the greater profit to society!" Housing first strategies in homelessness have been shown to save money on emergency services and healthcare, but we believe, in the US, that it's immoral to help people who can't pay up. We know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
I have a question, if you don't mind answering. What are you doing personally to help the homeless and less fortunate than yourself?
I get that it is easy to sit behind a keyboard and complain that other people aren't doing enough. The way to help people isn't to demand that other people pay more, but to use your own resources for the causes which are most important for you.
Simply giving more money to the state solves nothing. It just makes the state bigger, more corrupt and less efficient. The resources get diverted to other goals which don't match up with your own. Perhaps it would be better to keep more of your hard earned money so that you can utilize it as you feel most appropriate?
Relevant?: https://i.imgur.com/MogFw59.jpg
It seems to me that the flaws aren't with the system, but with people who idly sit and wait for things to improve at the cost of someone else (the "rich people" scapegoat). Your time is often more valuable than money to those in need. Why don't you give up more of your time to help people. Perhaps quit your job and become a full time altruist?
Look, nobody "deserves to be homeless," but nor does anybody "deserve to be homed at the cost of somebody else's labour" Nobody "deserves to be sick," but also nobody "deserves to have healthcare given to them without compensating the healthcare giver for their time". It isn't "immoral to help people who can't pay" at all, but it isn't "moral to steal other people's property to pay to help others" either.
You seem to have a cartoon world view in which everyone should be in prosperity by default - but the reality is that poverty is the default state of all of humanity, and the only way that humans have ever lifted themselves out of poverty is through productive labour and innovation. If you are not productive and you can't innovate, you are not entitled to the successes of those who are.
This might seem a bit cold-hearted, but the people who are in the best position to help others are those who are not spending every hour of every day undergoing basic survival. People have a self-interest to look after themselves and their families first - and then once they've secured that goal, can begin to look how they can help others less close to them. The simple fact is that the vast majority of humans are in the category of figuring out how their own family is going to survive month to month, and the less fortunate are simply just that. You can't help everyone. You have limited capacity as a human, and the most effective way you can help anybody is to secure the well-being of yourself and your family so that you have excess resources and time to dedicate to helping others. If your economic output is limited, your time dedicated to helping people directly is infinitely more valuable than your time campaigning for more socialism.
Why do you take it as fact that there isn't enough to go around? Are you sure that's the case?
Ultimately, if you want food on the plate, you either need to grow the food, or you need to trade some of your time or other commodities with somebody who has already grown it. The food won't grow itself. (Well, some will naturally, but in very limited quantities compared to the harvests that can be made through deliberate labour).
Similarly, houses won't build themselves. Somebody needs to labour to take the raw materials gathered from the earth and turn them into shelter. If this isn't you, why would you think you "deserve" to be sheltered?
Nobody is entitled to other people's labour. If you consider the case where one person takes 100% of the proceeds of another person's labour, we can safely say that this relationship is one of a master and a slave. If this is the case, what percentage of another person's labour can be taken where they are no longer a slave? Is it 60%? 50%? 40%? Who knows - some arbitrary figure. Of course the correct answer is 0%. Only if you own the full reward of your own labour are you a free person.
[1] https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs
[2] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
[3]https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
In a world without scarcity you'd have infinite food and infinite houses. We do not live in such a world.
You don't give people without the ability to pay for things stuff for free because you don't want to absolutely wreck your economy. If I'd get food and housing for free, I'd be the first one to quit my job and just live the good life of not working ever again. I'm incentivized to work because that isn't the case. And also because it's such a stupid idea, that I can see that it would collapse fast.
Scarity doesn't mean finite. It means shortage. Wasted food and vacant homes aren't shortages.
That's the common definition. There's also an economic definition having something to do with limited supply and limitless wants. I'll leave that to the academics. My argument is that there is enough food to feed the hungry and enough shelter to house the poor in the US. If someone has evidence to show otherwise, I'm open to it.
You can give them your own money if it pleases you.
Also, this:
> the only way that humans have ever lifted themselves out of poverty is through productive labour and innovation
...is utterly false. Maybe somewhat true in the general case (although less and less so even there in more recent history), but not at all for individuals. People and governments have helped other people and governments many times without asking for anything back.
Well yes. Theft is bad, and socialism is theft.
> Don't you think most people here have made up their minds on that issue and are tired of watching endless fights about it? We aren't on slashdot.
I'm well aware of how far left most of HN leans. Sometimes I wonder if this place is an internal discussion forum for the CCP (There are certain moderators who bark when anything critical of China gets posted here). I have a posting limit of 5 posts every few hours because my views are "the wrong views."
> ...is utterly false. Maybe somewhat true in the general case (although less and less so even there in more recent history), but not at all for individuals. People and governments have helped other people and governments many times without asking for anything back.
I was referring to the general case. Ultimately, somebody must perform labour or somebody must perform invention for the standard of living of themselves or others to improve. The work won't do itself.
The question is one of whether you are implicitly entitled to the results of other people's work and invention, which I refer to as theft, versus instead receiving charity out of other people's good nature.
The capitalist is often described as "evil," yet many engage in voluntary charity, and the socialist deludes himself to be the moral arbiter of good, when in fact, he simply thinks stealing the fruits of others labour is the solution to problems.
There's a lot of problems with this concept.
We don't live in a meritocracy. Having money doesn't mean your life is more valuable then someone else's. A kid born to a billionaire has access to extreme wealth (and therefore economic power) without proving any merit for it. Humanity has tried monarchism already, and we've decided it's not the best way to run things. People shouldn't be given power just cause they are related to the last guy who had it.
Hell, even if we did live in a meritocracy, is it moral to let people die because they lost the genetic roll of the dice? Somebody born with a disability should just die since they have less economic worth?
Is it moral to replace broken things instead of trying to fix them, considering that fixing will be more expensive and the thing might just break down again after a while anyway? That's not a question about morality, is it? Except if you replace "things" with "humans". I personally do not understand why this difference exists, however.
Why is it alright to abort babies that might get a disability, but it's completely out of the question to murder someone later in life for the same reason. It doesn't make sense to me. A persons life isn't inherently worth anything. If the economic output is negative and no one is willing to cover, why shouldn't that someone just die? It would be like saving money. There are probably good reasons that I just don't know, otherwise things wouldn't be the way they are or at least that's what I figure.
For instance, do you believe your life to be worth less than that of everyone else who has more money than you? What if that money was inherited and they didn't work a day in their lives? What about the life is say, Nikola Tesla who didn't have much money but laid foundations upon which a lot of our world is built today?
Is the person who negotiated for more money than you make now (while doing less useful work) have a more valuable life than yours?
Imagine you were walking with a friend of equal net worth, by your logic, if they suddenly found $100 on the ground and took it, their life is suddenly more valuable than yours? What if you both got struck with an illness and the doctor triaging said "huh, Kaiyou is worth $100 less than their friend so I guess I have to let him die and focus on the slightly wealthier person".
Have you ever enjoyed the company of someone who was economically worth less you? What of the benefits of their contributions (think of your teachers, researchers, janitors, construction workers, etc.). Assuming human value can be simply measured in made up constructs of money and debt obligations ignores a lot of what makes our experience richer
> Is it moral to replace broken things instead of trying to fix them, considering that fixing will be more expensive and the thing might just break down again after a while anyway? That's not a question about morality, is it? Except if you replace "things" with "humans". I personally do not understand why this difference exists, however.
It seems a big driver of your beliefs is that humans are worth nothing inherently. Morality enters the game entirely because we're conscious and have created morality questions and concerns for ourselves. Your shoes never quite evolved to have those questions (though if we ever achieve some loosely defined form of AGI, those questions will come into play)
But I'm not viewing things as fine grained as you are, but more fuzzy. A hundred bucks are basically nothing, but if I'm a doctor and have to decide whether to work for someone paying me a thousand dollar per hour or for someone paying me a thousand dollar per day, who am I going to choose to work for is obvious. If the difference in money isn't big, than things aren't as obvious.
I don't know much about what Nikola Tesla did, but maybe it's similar to someone having failed to negotiate adequate compensation. Which in turn is similar to someone getting killed and having his wealth outright stolen. The outcome is kinda the same: someone who didn't create the wealth reaps the benefits. Here's the thing, though, all said and done it doesn't matter who created the wealth, but who has it. Or let's rephrase that. Between the guy who cured cancer and the one who killed that guy, but got all the research results. Does it really matter to you who sells you the cure as long as you get the cure, if you suffer from cancer? Sure, there's injustice and all that. But does it really matter enough for you to not buy the cure for cancer from the murderer and die instead? And that is my answer. If you can amass wealth you are worth more. Even if you stole the wealth. You might then be hated and persecuted, but with enough wealth, that's not really that much of a problem, as there are few people not willing to buy the cure of cancer from a murderer if their life is on the line with no alternatives.
It's all about benefits in the end and wealth is a form of benefit. If you're good at gaining wealth, you're worth more than people who are bad at gaining wealth.
> Which in turn is similar to someone getting killed and having his wealth outright stolen
I don't quite see the similarity but that's because I believe in a general, fuzzy way, all our lives are sacred but grant that individuals make exceptions for personal gain and their perceived "greater good".
> If you can amass wealth you are worth more. Even if you stole the wealth. You might then be hated and persecuted, but with enough wealth, that's not really that much of a problem, as there are few people not willing to buy the cure of cancer from a murderer if their life is on the line with no alternatives.
Ain't that the truth. Still focusing on a single axis of our humanity (material wealth) but from that axis, what you say is correct.
Money is thankfully not all that life comes down to imo. Observing reality, money does drive a lot of the world and we directly and indirectly use that as a proxy for what someone's life is worth but I think we can accept the reality while still advocating for meaningful change.
That's part of why several people each day choose not to optimize purely for $$ but consider some deemed higher purpose (arguable ofc) of helping others be happier, healthier, finding spirituality, researching in academia when you could make 2x the money in industry, and fighting to improve the outcomes of others who are less... fortunate.
I previously misinterpreted what your perspective as "fuck it, it all comes down to money so nothing matters", but I now see it more as an observation and statements of the world's perspective and not necessarily that you believe your life is worth more than that of an incidentally poorer person.
Vegetarians extend this in-group preference to animals, but not to plants. I've once watched an interesting series about how a Vampire secretly turned more and more people of a village into his own kind. Most didn't have a problem hunting humans after the change, but there was one character who chose to starve and die instead of drinking the blood of humans. That left a deep impression on me. So now I'm thinking, if you don't sacrifice your own life for your ideals, are your ideals even worth anything? If you want poor people to receive money, but don't want to transfer all your own wealth to them, aren't you just a hypocrite?
It's true that not everyone chases after money, but it's undeniable that lots of money equals power. If you don't partake in the competition, you can't win. You might succeed in deceiving yourself and others, but you won't wield the power of money. There are other forms of power, of course, like religion or other organizations, for example companies or countries. But even then, if you strive for the top of any of those, you'll naturally amass more money than the people at the bottom of the hierarchy. If you don't want the responsibility that comes with wielding such power, all you can really do is live in peace and hope that the powers that be leave you alone. You don't have any initiative and also no right to complain.
There's this saying that power corrupts, but I don't think that's the truth of it. Power only reveals your true character. Like the character from the story I mentioned, who received the power of being a vampire, but chose to starve himself to death.
Your local supermarket making 30% on loaves of bread isn't doing either of these things. Healthcare is the closest to fitting the bill, if we're talking about the U.S., and you guys should look into that even without a pandemic as impetus.
What we needed was immediate rationing policies, the price was never the problem. Stores eventually ended up self-initiating individual buying limits but this was well after all the initial supply dried up.
In fact, if all prices were immediately responsive to local supply/demand, this likely would have effectively resulted in a rationing policy. If the unit price of toilet paper at my local CVS was in part a function of the remaining supply at the local store, as one person attempted to buy all of it, the unit price would soar, effectively preventing them from doing so unless they're a millionaire and prepared to spend thousands of dollars on toilet paper.
Indeed, one can easily make an argument for stronger market forces to solve this problem. That existing markets for common goods are too poorly responsive to supply and demand and that the local supply/demand signals are ignored and only national signals are accounted for.
But also, simple rationing would have worked too.
The exception is healthcare, which I believe the current for profit model is unethical and immoral.
I think we agree that consumer prices are important. The point of this example is to compare two situations where the prices to the consumer are the same, and only the profit differs, to tease out whether profit really matters.
So I think there is more variance on essential goods than you imply.
The general advantage of markets is rational distribution of goods through the mechanism of the price signal. in emergency situations, there isn't really a lot of price finding we need to do. We know where markets need to go (hospitals) and we need to produce significantly more than we realistically even can right now.
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2017/09/a_poll_of_econo.htm...
I think there is more than "large profit" at work here when people talk about disaster profiteers.
There is a critical other element: some reasonable equality of distribution of supplies in emergencies. The persons selling at a large profit are distributing gear to those who can pay the most, which inherently leaves those to drown that can't compete on price.
In an emergency like this, ideally per capita NYC should get the same supplies as Buffalo NY (or Detroit, or Baltimore), assuming they are hit similarly per capita by the virus, despite NYC being far wealthier and able to outbid on gear. Properly in an emergency like this, a life in Detroit should have the same value as one in NYC.
Rich vs poor distribution is questionable in a game like Major League Baseball, big market teams vs small market teams, and it's morally horrendous to observe when it's poorer people (and healthcare systems) in Buffalo competing versus richer people in NYC for medical gear (not meant to represent an actual scenario playing out now).
That's of course very hard to level as a playing field, unless it's the Federal Government stepping in and doing the leveling to ensure some equality of supplies.
The broad point of all of this is that society should be structured in a way that rewards act as incentives to people to create more benefit to others. That's the core idea behind an Adam Smith type capitalism.
About Tokyo housing development deregulation and its impacts [0]
[0] - https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-ho...
They are the hand sanitizer guy.