Consumer advocate: Economists reason that price gouging -- increasing the price of goods when no alternative seller is available -- is efficient because it allocates goods to people whose willingness to pay more shows that they really need those goods  But willingness to pay is not proportional to need  In the real world, some people simply cannot pay as much as others
As a result, a price increase will allocate goods to the people with the most money, not to those with the most need
It is a general principle whose validity the argument questions.