JohnALancaster.com
Sellers charging consumers higher-than-normal prices for goods during trying times are almost always accused price gouging. No matter the market activities and/or political factors that play roles in affecting prices the general view is that the elevated prices reflect the privileged haves" (sellers) taking advantage of the desperate have-nots"(consumers). But what if a seller decided to allow consumers to voice what they are willing to pay and adjust the price accordingly? Apparently that is also price gouging.
The
Texas Attorney Generals Office filed a lawsuit against Auctions Unlimited in Houston TX for auctioning face masks hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies at exorbitant prices." Though the auctioneer started the bids at $1 and the bidders themselves offered the prices the Attorney General
Ken Paxton maintains:
My office will not tolerate anyone taking advantage of Texans in need and profiting from this health crisis.
This situation highlights a major issue with price gouging laws that is seldom if ever mentioned; Price gouging laws punish sellers for the preferences of consumers.
Sellers of goods wont be able to make sales if they mark their goods higher than what consumers are willing to pay. Since profit is needed for the sellers firm to survive making sales is crucial. Likewise consumers will not purchase what they either cannot afford or what costs more than they want to pay. These circumstances mean that the prices of goods will not rise to the point of being generally unobtainable. So while prices during crises may increase they will remain low enough to sustain frequent sales.
Of course there will be people who protest and bemoan higher prices during a crisis but this doesnt undo the fact that enough people have to be making purchases at those higher prices for the prices to remain at the exorbitant" level in the first place.
So when the government charges sellers with price gouging the sellers are being penalized for taking advantage" of consumers with prices the consumers voluntarily accept. This point is made more obvious in the aforementioned case of the auctioneer getting hit with a lawsuit for prices the willing bidders themselves explicitly chose.
These observations call into question who price gouging laws are designed to serve. Obviously the citizens who report price gouging are among the appeased. Those who were priced out of the market by the higher-than-normal prices may also be in that category. Yet considering how consumers voluntary purchases contribute to gouged prices and factoring in how price gouging was charged in regards to an auction one has reason to ponder if price gouging laws are simply another tool used by the government to exert its influence and justify the existence of its many bureaucrats.
