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If you voluntarily make an exchange with someone else, both of you gain value; both of you would prefer to have what you got from the trade more than what you lost. This isnt exploitation, trade isnt zero sum. Billions of these little value gains are what civilization is made of!

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True, but nor are they fair. Or the assumption that exchanges are equal by some definition is unfounded. Exchanges are "voluntary" only compared to the alternatives each party faces. Hence exploitation is possible.

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even if it's only compared to the alternatives, it's still improving the situation. "Exploitation" is thus bettering their circumstances

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Like it’s true that if I pay extremely inflated prices for grain being hoarded during a famine both I and the hoarder are better off than potential alternatives, but hoarding food during a famine is both morally bad and is obviously socially non-optimal

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paying inflated prices incentives hoarding, which is good because it incentives people preparing food for possible famine. if you ban hoarding now ppl don't have incentive to stockpile food for others in case of famine and more ppl starve

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This is a question we can actually answer empirically: do you think places with laws against price gouging have worse famines? That also just isn’t how grain markets work, but let’s leave that aside for now

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“Price gouging during famines is good, actually” is the sort of take that should provoke some self-reflection, I will also say

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I am generally pro price gouging in emergencies, I think this leads to better total outcomes for consumers

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Right, why do you think that though? This is a thing there’s actual empirical work on, have you just like not looked at that?

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If there's clear empirical stuff that disagrees can you link? It's hard to find things without confounders tho. Also I googled "what do economists think about price gouging" and it seems like some and maybe a majority agrees with me

7:06 PM · Dec 21, 2021

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