Relentless profit-seeking tendencies combined with monopolies are fundamentally toxic. Which is why we (generally) outlaw monopolies. The ones we do grant have (in theory) provisions that favor the public interest.
In other words, if your business operates a monopoly granted by the state, you DO have a special set of legal, moral, and ethical obligations that don't apply to less privileged organizations. If a protected company DOES start to behave in an anti-social fashion, opting for pure profit-maximization and short-term shareholder gains, then it's the JOB of the government to attack them, rescind their monopoly, and generally punish the hell out of them for violating the basic contract that accompanied the initial grant.
If they don't like that possibility - or realize that they're just not up to the (admittedly challenging) task of administering an public trust along side a commercial business - then they can retreat to the less complicated, less ethically demanding, and more mercenary ranks of those operating in the free market - which has it's own set of mechanisms from weeding out the truly dishonest and abusive.
In other words, if your business operates a monopoly granted by the state, you DO have a special set of legal, moral, and ethical obligations that don't apply to less privileged organizations.
If there were such obligations, they would be made specific in the regulation. It's pointless to set the rules for the game and then get upset when they are followed. I personally find the price gouging distasteful as well, but those are my ethical beliefs and they in no way compel the behavior of others.
Hence my claim that the regulations should be the subject of the discussion, not whether some particular company is acting in accordance with our personal views.
In other words, if your business operates a monopoly granted by the state, you DO have a special set of legal, moral, and ethical obligations that don't apply to less privileged organizations. If a protected company DOES start to behave in an anti-social fashion, opting for pure profit-maximization and short-term shareholder gains, then it's the JOB of the government to attack them, rescind their monopoly, and generally punish the hell out of them for violating the basic contract that accompanied the initial grant.
If they don't like that possibility - or realize that they're just not up to the (admittedly challenging) task of administering an public trust along side a commercial business - then they can retreat to the less complicated, less ethically demanding, and more mercenary ranks of those operating in the free market - which has it's own set of mechanisms from weeding out the truly dishonest and abusive.