Abstract
This paper will serve to answer questions regarding whether or not price fixing is fair, ethical, and/or socially responsible, looking at whether or not it makes a difference what the extra profit is used for, or if there was a chance of being caught.
Keywords: price fixing, fair, ethical, socially responsible, profit usage, likelihood of being caught
 
Price Fixing
Price fixing is the process by which a price is established for a product or service by those who produce the product, as opposed to allowing the market to determine the price of the item through free-market forces; while there is no law against the government using price fixing, there are anti-trust laws that make it illegal for businesses to do so in certain circumstances

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Price fixing is deemed to be unfair because it can potentially cause many issues within the market, taking it from a free market society to one that it controlled by price, regardless of how much or how little the item is needed. It is not ethical, as in the cases where prices were raised for water after the occurrence of a natural disaster, simply for the purpose of increasing the business or entity’s profits as opposed to working to assist in correcting the situation, and for this reason it may also be considered socially irresponsible.

It does not make a difference what the extra profit is used for, because if price fixing is done once and a business gets away with it, they are likely to do so again, and the reason will cease to matter, becoming instead simply another way to be able to get more money. My answer would not be different if there was no chance to get caught, because the situation would still stand.

Price fixing is socially irresponsible, ethically wrong, and unfair, given the situations that these types of issues arise are often considered to be some type of crisis situation, and the purpose of the fix is to simply work to extort more money from the consumer, regardless of their personal situation, and if one does this, so shall other businesses, meaning that the likelihood of being able to purchase the same item somewhere else for cheaper will cease to exist, something that putting governances on price fixing strives to avoid.