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People.
Like it or not, we the people routinely use laws and government action to enforce and reinforce moral principles. Injunctions against murder, theft, rape, and more are obviously based in moral concerns. So are attempts to regulate abortion, drugs, marriage, and yes price gouging.
Surrendering this because you live in a system that is designed to ensure that no one individual gets their way 100% of the time is, to put it mildly, self-defeating.
Sure, if you are completely clueless about the effects of a crisis, like a hurricane.
Let's consider a store that stocks up on water before a crisis. The owner is still getting water at the normal price (or close to it). He has a few additional costs, namely storage, but it's not like his costs increased tenfold, or unsold water will spoil in 3 days. He is not justified in charging more before the storm, simply because there is a temporary surge in demand due to expecting a crisis. That's just taking advantage of people.
What about during a crisis? How will that "go getter from Austin" transport enough bottles of water to Houston, exactly? He's not going to have much luck driving a truck full of water into a neighborhood that was inundated with several feet of water.
Wouldn't that "go getter" provide a better service by... getting people? Rescuing people who are stranded, and taking them to shelter? Should the "Cajun Navy" charge $10 for water, when they pick people up?
And do we actually want untrained people, going INTO a crisis area, to make a quick buck? Enough to actually make a dent in scarce supplies? At a time, we might add, when federal agencies and the National Guard have logistical challenges transporting supplies into an afflicted area? I seriously doubt it.
Rationing.
It really isn't that hard to say "X bottles per adult, kids get X+1, senior citizens get X+2."
Nothing will be perfect. But it is much fairer to ration supplies than to sell it to the highest bidder - especially as that person could, in your schema, hoard up every bottle of water he could find, and resell it at an even higher price.
Or, they will buy as much as they can anyway.
The type of claim you make is a typical error of classical economics. You assume that people who are in the middle of a hurricane and flood will react rationally and calmly to economic incentives! It's absurd. People don't act very rationally in the first place, which is why they are routinely and repeatedly swayed by factors like anchoring, or prices of "$34.99" instead of "$35," or hyperbolic discounting. They don't act more rationally when their house and car are sitting in 3 feet of water.
Riiiiiight. Driving 50 miles in this? Try again.
Yet again, you're merely presenting an argument for rationing, not higher prices. Higher prices do not prevent people from buying more than they need, it just makes it more expensive to do so. Higher prices also do not make it a snap to drive down a flooded highway.
Let's say that your local supermarket happens to be on higher ground, and manages to stay open. Its supply is limited; it has 1000 bottles of water; and in the aftermath of the storm, 500 people want water. If you ration it at 2 per person, everyone gets 2 bottles. Charging $10 or $20 or $30 per bottle doesn't actually reduce demand, because the demand is inelastic -- did you miss that day in your Econ 101 class? -- meaning the demand doesn't change based on price. It also doesn't increase supply, because there is no way to restock the store, at any price. It doesn't result in an equitable distribution, because you can still have some desperate individual who is willing to drop $1000 to buy 3 cases of water (when he only needs one). Or, better yet, you can have someone who buys 10 cases of water, and decides to charge $40 per bottle.
And who benefits here? The seller. Funny thing, when you get taken advantage of someone, you don't benefit.
Thanks, yet again, for showing the moral vacuum and lack of efficiency and equity of price gouging.
