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Authored by Jonathan Newman via The Mises Institute,

In Paul Krugman’s latest column, he claims that Kamala Harris hasn’t advocated for price controls, only a ban on price gouging on groceries.

Of course, these are the same thing.

Krugman’s own principles text defines price controls as “legal restrictions on how high or low a market price may go.”

A ban on price gouging is a legal restriction on how high a market price may go.

Therefore, even Krugman-the-textbook-author admits that a ban on price gouging is the same as a price ceiling.

In his column, he gives examples of price gouging:

Krugman is implying that a crisis constitutes an exception – it’s not a price control if it is implemented in response to a crisis.

But then, if you look at his textbook, he provides these examples of price ceilings: 

Krugman-the-textbook-author says the California energy crisis episode was an example of a price control, but Krugman-the-columnist says it’s not a price control; it’s just a ban on price gouging.

I’d be surprised if it wasn’t Krugman, but this kind of doublespeak is par for the course for him.

In his textbook, Krugman lists all the well-known problems with price ceilings.

He says price ceilings result in “inefficiently low quantity,” deadweight loss, the creation of winners and losers, “inefficient allocation to consumers,” “wasted resources,” “inefficiently low quality,” and the emergence of black markets.

He says that governments may impose price ceilings because they don’t understand basic microeconomics.

But now, Krugman-the-columnist has changed his tune. In his column, he writes, “you can consider it reasonable to have legal restrictions on price gouging.”