An Economic Point of View on Price Gauging Essay - 1

An Economic Point of View on Price Gauging - Essay Example The obvious answer that struck this reader was that it should not be allowed to price gauge a customer. Yet, one of the points of view that the author presented was that price gauging should be allowed to exist so that the economic market can quickly reach a point of equilibrium. Although I do not agree with this, the fact is that the science behind such a point of view is inarguable. However, the point is not whether the free market is the best way to solve all of the world’s problems, the issue revolves around how would be the more â€Å"just† way to allocate the resources we as a society have during a national emergency or a crisis in which price gauging would be very commonplace. As such, it is the belief of this author that even though the free market has helped the nation develop an economy that is the strongest the world has yet seen, the fact remains that the federal government has a responsibility to its most vulnerable citizens to continue to implement rules and regulations that help to protect them against the predatory nature of price gauging. Regardless of what individual economists or economic theorists might put forward, the practice in and of itself is not reconcilable with a free and open society as the United States has claimed to have built (Sandel 5). Finally, approaching such a topic from merely an economic point of view misses out on a great deal of the layers of meaning and ideas of â€Å"right and wrong†/†good and bad† that exist within the example that was given.