It occurs to me that the efforts to make gouging illegal are really efforts to outlaw greed. If you are making policy, it is much more important to legislate against results instead of motivations. While it is certainly possible that a gas station owner might have a master’s degree in economics and will raise prices to insure availability of product and stimulate resupply, it is far more likely that the owner will simply see an opportunity to raise prices and make a buck. In the former case, the owner is looking out for the good of the community, in the latter, the guy is just “being greedy.” In either case, the results are the same. If we were actually worried about people’s well being in emergencies, we would pass laws requiring business owners to raise the prices during emergencies. This would cause self imposed rationing of important resources on the part of consumers and will ensure the quickest flow of goods to the affected areas. Instead, what we are given are laws that are concerned with how people feel about the situation and ignore what the consequences of that law are. Ideally, the government would stay out of it altogether, but the law I suggested would do less damage. High gas prices are never a “crisis”, but no gas certainly is.
“But people should react out of good intentions,” yeah, that would be nice. Here’s the thing, the saints that are in the situation will always rise to the occasion, the trick is to get the nonsaints and saints that are removed from the situation involved in doing good. Even if some gas station owners are willing to forgo potential profits and sell gas at the old price, will there be enough saints to understand the situation and only use gas when it is absolutely necessary? Sure, there are some businesses and people that will immediately flock to the affected area to help and bring supplies. Would more people come with supplies if they were poised to make some money at it? Would people in Georgia load up their pickup truck with plywood and drive to Florida after a hurricane if they were going to make 600-700 bucks doing it? You better believe it.. Trying to legislate morality is at best a fool’s errand and at worse is an excuse to impose one type of morality over everyone (see anti gay laws for example). Yes, sometimes people do not have everyone else’s best interests at heart, but as long as the results are the same as someone that does, who’s business is it what people think?