Today?s Wall Street Journal, included an op-ed written by Holman A. Jenkins Jr. entitled, ?Hug a Price-Gouger.?
The article can be found HERE.
The events of Hurricane Sandy, re-ignited an interesting discussion of what it means to serve customers in the hours preceding a disaster. ?Price-gouging? is almost always thought to be a way that businesses can ?enormously? profit from the needs of many in a time of necessity or demand. Put another way, many people might feel ?there?s supply-and-demand, and then there?s ?price-gouging.??
The days leading up to Hurricane Sandy found many grocery store shelves completely bare. Most establishments could not keep an inventory of tuna, water, vegetables etc. Holman even references people buying 2 or 3 generators in preparation. The mentality being, these items can always be used and it is best to get as much as possible. The result: many people were left trying to find bottled water and D batteries somewhere else.
A case can be made that many parties can bear some of the blame here. In a time of disaster, good citizens should only take what they need. Also those who were turned away should have been more prepared and not waited until the last minute. Assuredly anecdotes can be supplied for all opinions.
Holman posits that the shop owners could have curbed the demand by raising prices such that people would think twice before buying as much as they could. In the end, could a case be made for the shop owner raising prices in an effort to better serve the customer?
In another article, freelance writer David M. Brown makes the case that ?Price Gouging Saves Lives in a Hurricane.? While Brown frames the discussion with an emphasis on how people will behave, ethics chooses to look at how people should behave. What higher standards are relevant to this discussion?
Gen 41 provides a biblical backdrop for adjusting prices when Joseph was put in a charge of Egypt during the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine. The reformers also encouraged protecting the community in the Larger Catechism: ??endeavor, by all just and lawful means, to procure, preserve, and further the wealth and outward estate of others, as well as our own. (WLC Q 141)
What are your thoughts? Can raising prices protect the customer? What are some good principles to keep in mind when faced with issues like this?
Source: http://www.cfcbe.com/2012/10/31/how-do-we-serve-our-customers-during-a-hurricane/
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