I guess it depends on your stance on monopolies. If you think monopolies result only from government interference in the market, then you’ll be more laissez-faire. But if you notice that firms often want to join together in cozy cartels and have subtle ways to do it (see RealPage), or that some markets lead to natural monopolies, then the problem of protecting people from monopoly prices and reducing the reward for monopolization is a real problem. And yeah, banning price gouging is a blunt instrument—but it has the benefit of being direct. Fighting the more indirect aspects of monopolization is harder. So in this branch of the argument, if you want to allow price gouging, that has to come in tandem with better antimonopoly measures.
I guess it depends on your stance on monopolies. If you think monopolies result only from government interference in the market, then you’ll be more laissez-faire. But if you notice that firms often want to join together in cozy cartels and have subtle ways to do it (see RealPage), or that some markets lead to natural monopolies, then the problem of protecting people from monopoly prices and reducing the reward for monopolization is a real problem. And yeah, banning price gouging is a blunt instrument—but it has the benefit of being direct. Fighting the more indirect aspects of monopolization is harder. So in this branch of the argument, if you want to allow price gouging, that has to come in tandem with better antimonopoly measures.