Natural disasters are pretty much the genesis of community. Humans band together to overcome challenges that would crush individuals. This is basic social contract shit: we pay taxes and abide by rules so that when we are at a disadvantage, the greater community will protect us as we protect the unfortunate when we are not harmed.

Gouging is a fundamental attack on the social contract. Yeah - maybe you need a generator so badly you'll pay double... but in a disaster you need everything badly. Gouging upends the typical distribution of resources to the advantage of the few and powerful; Stossel's generator hero is getting there on highways kept safe by DOT, using gas certified and regulated by the Department of Commerce and selling in an environment kept safe by the police department. It's not like he showed up like the Great Humungus with an army of gay bikers at his back.

Stossel's basic argument is something along the lines of a free market allows the revelation of scarcity through price discovery. Fucking duh. A place without power needs power generation. A place without running water needs water. You don't need "price discovery" to determine this. You need the logical extension of the social contract to speed relief to affected areas so that everyone in unaffected areas can prosper under the sense that their society will protect them from the greater hardship of Hobbes' nastybrutishandshort.

It's not that this shit can't be refuted. It's that it can be solved by inspection. This here is some real Golden Rule shit and it takes a libertarian to argue that they're 100% A-OK as the starving, in-the-dark instruments of "price discovery."