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talkpoliticsWell apparently I thought wrong. There is great division in these here lands over the proper handling of food regulation (or lack thereof) by our glorious Big Brother government, who exist only to extract our hard-earned tax money from us at gunpoint. Who put these clowns in power, anyway? I certainly didn't. That would require having me come out of my bunker to go to the polls, and there are Black Panthers there ready to pounce on me! But I digress.
Now, we can't have a discussion without some baselines and clarifications, the first of which is the fallacy that libertarians want anarchy. They don't- they are perfectly accepting of a nice democratic republic with a nice Constitution. They simply don't like being told what they can and can't do, and would like these restrictions kept to an absolute minimum. Fraud, perjury, forgery, violence, or really any process that relies on force or lying should be illegal, and we all agree on that.
I have a personal issue with libertarians in that some (to not cast a generalized glance) advocate a society driven by a profit-motive, but a lot of things that act toward the benefit of society go against the profit motive. Testing your food, stickers with expiration dates, very rigorous safety measures, all of these cost money and yet in a society without safety laws, these people are expected to still follow these procedures that cost them a lot of money? This didn't happen in history, and I don't know why it would happen if all regulations were removed. That's my one gripe, and I'd like to not focus on it as much to just address the issues I'm about to bring up.
To that degree, we discuss under the premise that it should be illegal to lie to your consumers. How do you keep an industry from lying to its clients? That is one of my first questions. One way is through government regulation. Here is an anecdote about how Heinz became the market leader in ketchup:
By the start of the Twentieth Century, Heinz was a major ketchup producer, but so were several companies who padded their bottom line by mixing rancid tomatoes into their product.
Seeing an opportunity, Heinz joined the chorus of scientists, consumer advocates and government officials who were clamoring for federal oversight of the processed food industry, even sending future Heinz CEO Howard Heinz to lobby President Theodore Roosevelt in favor of a the Pure Food and Drug Act, which prohibited some of the processed food industry’s most revolting practices and gave enforcement authority to the agency which would later become the FDA. In 1906 the Act passed, and most of Heinz competitors were pushed out of business.
Because Heinz was one of only a handful of major ketchup producers who were already in the business of mass producing ketchup solely from fresh tomatoes, they quickly capitalized on the vacuum that formed as the rancid ketchup industry collapsed. Heinz became the market leader, and it remains so today.
Others would advocate merely that you provide government funding to test, and require safety labels on products that may contain harmful substances. Let the people decide after reading the labels whether or not they want the product, right?
My point is simply to indicate that, despite Heinz’ belief that “pure food . . . is good business,” the truth is that thousands of American consumers bought rancid ketchup for decades, even though they had the option to choose Heinz’ safer product. Market forces left thousands of Americans sick from tomato mold. It wasn’t until the federal government got involved that rotten tomato ketchup left the shelves of local groceries.
My argument is thus: History shows that people aren't quite the rational thinkers we'd like them to be. Even today, people make poor choices all the time and it costs them dearly. We have warning labels on cigarettes, but smoking is still very popular. We have warning labels on alcohol, but that hasn't stopped alcohol-related diseases or DUIs. My argument is that warning labels are not enough. To truly remove a harmful product from the shelf is to regulate against it. To set a limit of harmful content in a product that makes it illegal to sell above that amount.
Why should we allow this to be a risk? What benefit does tainted food serve being on a shelf? Even if you allow compensation to the person who ate the tainted food, if it's deadly then they're likely going to die before they get a dime. Liability is a non-factor to the consumer when dealing with deadly substances.
In the Heinz example, they started out by advertising the product as being pure while the others used rotten tomatoes, but people still continued buying rancid ketchup. Despite having all the information, market forces continued to favor the cheaper, tainted food. Using this historical evidence, my conclusion is that people can't make rational decisions even under the best circumstances. To really understand this topic you really have to look at the pure food movement in the 1900s and how hard it was to get people to not eat rancid food. To get them not to eat contaminated meat from butchers which was food colored to not look bad. To have food produced in the same place that rats defecated in. To have no laws against expiration dates. It was very difficult in that day, despite vast amounts of information available to the people, to get them to stop poisoning themselves without laws. It sounds crazy to just believe people will eat something that can kill them, knowing it can kill them, but I believe that it's a well-educated, white, wealthy viewpoint. They don't know what it's like to be poor, hungry, and uneducated. It's just a fact of life that abject poverty causes a lot of bad decision-making, and there's no way to stop the cycle without regulation that keeps poison off the shelves.
Secondly, I believe that it makes no sense to allow a company to produce something that can kill somebody. There is no reason for it to be on the shelf in the first place. How big is the label? Is it big enough or is it hidden with small text? How is it marketed? You run the risk of people being deceived. If there is merely a law to test the product, but none that makes it illegal to actually do it, then what can you do? If the warning label sufficiently covers the risk (assuming it hasn't been hampered in any way), what can someone do for compensation?
The Pure Food and Drug Act was initially concerned with ensuring products were labeled correctly. Later efforts were made to outlaw certain products that were not safe, followed by efforts to outlaw products which were safe but not effective.
Let's not confuse my analogy with alcohol and cigarettes as some sort of bizarre argument to outlaw those things. Both of them are okay in moderation, but it only takes one bad piece of food to get poisoned. That is the essential difference.
A regulatory system prevents tainted food from making it to stores. It prevents people from even having the option to consume. The whole point of market regulation is to mitigate externality, not allow a broader range of (very poor) choice to the consumer. This is the key point here of a regulatory system.
When you mitigate externality, you keep from incurring extra costs. You have to remember: Salmonella spreads, e.coli spreads. Just allowing them to produce tainted food runs the risk of it spreading to the rest of their products. For example, under current regulation if a farm is found to have tainted spinach then it is forced to get rid of all their spinach, and their entire process of making spinach has to be reevaluated. That's what regulation does.
A final note is that I am aware and acknowledge the imperfections in our system. There is corruption, there are regulatory agencies that promote bad food, there are inefficiencies and many other problems. I wish to improve this system, and I believe that it doesn't come from doing away with it entirely and returning to the age of robber barons and the most unsanitary food conditions our country has ever had.
Source: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/libertarians-are-dumb-or-why-we-eat-heinz-ketchup/blog-298247/?page=2
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
Now, we can't have a discussion without some baselines and clarifications, the first of which is the fallacy that libertarians want anarchy. They don't- they are perfectly accepting of a nice democratic republic with a nice Constitution. They simply don't like being told what they can and can't do, and would like these restrictions kept to an absolute minimum. Fraud, perjury, forgery, violence, or really any process that relies on force or lying should be illegal, and we all agree on that.
I have a personal issue with libertarians in that some (to not cast a generalized glance) advocate a society driven by a profit-motive, but a lot of things that act toward the benefit of society go against the profit motive. Testing your food, stickers with expiration dates, very rigorous safety measures, all of these cost money and yet in a society without safety laws, these people are expected to still follow these procedures that cost them a lot of money? This didn't happen in history, and I don't know why it would happen if all regulations were removed. That's my one gripe, and I'd like to not focus on it as much to just address the issues I'm about to bring up.
To that degree, we discuss under the premise that it should be illegal to lie to your consumers. How do you keep an industry from lying to its clients? That is one of my first questions. One way is through government regulation. Here is an anecdote about how Heinz became the market leader in ketchup:
By the start of the Twentieth Century, Heinz was a major ketchup producer, but so were several companies who padded their bottom line by mixing rancid tomatoes into their product.
Seeing an opportunity, Heinz joined the chorus of scientists, consumer advocates and government officials who were clamoring for federal oversight of the processed food industry, even sending future Heinz CEO Howard Heinz to lobby President Theodore Roosevelt in favor of a the Pure Food and Drug Act, which prohibited some of the processed food industry’s most revolting practices and gave enforcement authority to the agency which would later become the FDA. In 1906 the Act passed, and most of Heinz competitors were pushed out of business.
Because Heinz was one of only a handful of major ketchup producers who were already in the business of mass producing ketchup solely from fresh tomatoes, they quickly capitalized on the vacuum that formed as the rancid ketchup industry collapsed. Heinz became the market leader, and it remains so today.
Others would advocate merely that you provide government funding to test, and require safety labels on products that may contain harmful substances. Let the people decide after reading the labels whether or not they want the product, right?
My point is simply to indicate that, despite Heinz’ belief that “pure food . . . is good business,” the truth is that thousands of American consumers bought rancid ketchup for decades, even though they had the option to choose Heinz’ safer product. Market forces left thousands of Americans sick from tomato mold. It wasn’t until the federal government got involved that rotten tomato ketchup left the shelves of local groceries.
My argument is thus: History shows that people aren't quite the rational thinkers we'd like them to be. Even today, people make poor choices all the time and it costs them dearly. We have warning labels on cigarettes, but smoking is still very popular. We have warning labels on alcohol, but that hasn't stopped alcohol-related diseases or DUIs. My argument is that warning labels are not enough. To truly remove a harmful product from the shelf is to regulate against it. To set a limit of harmful content in a product that makes it illegal to sell above that amount.
Why should we allow this to be a risk? What benefit does tainted food serve being on a shelf? Even if you allow compensation to the person who ate the tainted food, if it's deadly then they're likely going to die before they get a dime. Liability is a non-factor to the consumer when dealing with deadly substances.
In the Heinz example, they started out by advertising the product as being pure while the others used rotten tomatoes, but people still continued buying rancid ketchup. Despite having all the information, market forces continued to favor the cheaper, tainted food. Using this historical evidence, my conclusion is that people can't make rational decisions even under the best circumstances. To really understand this topic you really have to look at the pure food movement in the 1900s and how hard it was to get people to not eat rancid food. To get them not to eat contaminated meat from butchers which was food colored to not look bad. To have food produced in the same place that rats defecated in. To have no laws against expiration dates. It was very difficult in that day, despite vast amounts of information available to the people, to get them to stop poisoning themselves without laws. It sounds crazy to just believe people will eat something that can kill them, knowing it can kill them, but I believe that it's a well-educated, white, wealthy viewpoint. They don't know what it's like to be poor, hungry, and uneducated. It's just a fact of life that abject poverty causes a lot of bad decision-making, and there's no way to stop the cycle without regulation that keeps poison off the shelves.
Secondly, I believe that it makes no sense to allow a company to produce something that can kill somebody. There is no reason for it to be on the shelf in the first place. How big is the label? Is it big enough or is it hidden with small text? How is it marketed? You run the risk of people being deceived. If there is merely a law to test the product, but none that makes it illegal to actually do it, then what can you do? If the warning label sufficiently covers the risk (assuming it hasn't been hampered in any way), what can someone do for compensation?
The Pure Food and Drug Act was initially concerned with ensuring products were labeled correctly. Later efforts were made to outlaw certain products that were not safe, followed by efforts to outlaw products which were safe but not effective.
Let's not confuse my analogy with alcohol and cigarettes as some sort of bizarre argument to outlaw those things. Both of them are okay in moderation, but it only takes one bad piece of food to get poisoned. That is the essential difference.
A regulatory system prevents tainted food from making it to stores. It prevents people from even having the option to consume. The whole point of market regulation is to mitigate externality, not allow a broader range of (very poor) choice to the consumer. This is the key point here of a regulatory system.
When you mitigate externality, you keep from incurring extra costs. You have to remember: Salmonella spreads, e.coli spreads. Just allowing them to produce tainted food runs the risk of it spreading to the rest of their products. For example, under current regulation if a farm is found to have tainted spinach then it is forced to get rid of all their spinach, and their entire process of making spinach has to be reevaluated. That's what regulation does.
A final note is that I am aware and acknowledge the imperfections in our system. There is corruption, there are regulatory agencies that promote bad food, there are inefficiencies and many other problems. I wish to improve this system, and I believe that it doesn't come from doing away with it entirely and returning to the age of robber barons and the most unsanitary food conditions our country has ever had.
Source: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/libertarians-are-dumb-or-why-we-eat-heinz-ketchup/blog-298247/?page=2
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 17:20 (UTC)So now you are the final arbiter of what rationality is? You are suffering from 3 delusions here...
1) You know what is best for other people. Smoking is bad and kills people so choosing to smoke is an irrational decision, but that presumes your goal in life is to live as long as possible. Not everyone has the same goals, motivations or desires in life, this is exactly why libertarians allow for an infinite number of definitions of profit. I happen to agree with your that smoking is idiotic and starting it is a poor choice, however I would never be so vain as to tell someone else that they were not rational for doing it because I cannot possibly know the totality of their life experiences or desires and what is irrational for me may make perfect sense for them.
2) All choices which have undesirable results were irrational. Just because something bad happens does not mean that the choices leading up to it were irrational. Sometimes bad stuff just happens
3) That even to the extent that people do behave irrationally the belief that you can force them to change that behavior through government fiat is hubris at it's finest. You cannot turn men into angels by outlawing bad behavior nor can you turn them into Vulcans by outlawing irrationality and any attempt to do so infantileizes them and makes them more dependent on others making their decisions for them, not less.
Finally...
"A regulatory system prevents tainted food from making it to stores."
No, a regulatory system that prevents tainted food from making it to the stores does not exist, has never existed and will never exist. To assume otherwise is to assume perfection in a human system.
The best you can argue is that some particular form of regulatory system is a marginal improvement in food safety over all other possibly systems of increasing food safety but you have not even attempted to make that argument, you simply asserted it.
"It prevents people from even having the option to consume. The whole point of market regulation is to mitigate externality, not allow a broader range of (very poor) choice to the consumer. This is the key point here of a regulatory system."
And that is the whole point of libertarian thought, we do not put our trust in technocrats to tell us how to live. The idea that you can design a system that meets the needs of 350 million people better than them making their own decisions for themselves is ridiculous.
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 18:35 (UTC)Yes I get it, it's hard to determine why people do stupid things. I made my guesses, you can make yours. The thing is, people can want to live a long life and still have an early grave from a tainted product. Their choices aren't matching up with their desires here, aka bad stuff happens. I'd like to prevent bad stuff from happening with regulation. The fact that this regulation WORKED and made salmonella/e.coli rates PLUMMET means that it accomplished what it set out to do.
It's not hubris,; it's history.
No, a regulatory system that prevents tainted food from making it to the stores does not exist, has never existed and will never exist.
Alright, you just don't believe regulations actually do what they set out to do. I'm not sure how you would support this argument. Been inside a meat factory that was safety tested? You think it didn't need to be before that? I don't know, I don't really see how you can support your claims here. Read up on the 1900s sanitary conditions for food pre-regulation and post-regulation and see what you come up with. Note: I'm being facetious because I already know the answer.
And that is the whole point of libertarian thought, we do not put our trust in technocrats to tell us how to live. The idea that you can design a system that meets the needs of 350 million people better than them making their own decisions for themselves is ridiculous.
So, you would be opposed to the government requiring testing of food products period? You think it should be every man for himself? Remember, before the Pure Food and Drug Act, there were no warning labels. You had no idea what you were getting, or what you were being told was the truth. They were not liable, not accountable, and had no reason to tell you the truth. You can't make an informed decision if you're being denied all the information.
Also, technocrats? I would love if our corporations were run by engineers, at least, instead of people with MBAs who have no idea how their products are actually made and the costs involved. Politicians who were lawyers is not technocracy, though. And, you clearly accept them telling you how to live in some respects. They tell you not to hurt/kill, not to lie financially, and a host of other things that are codified into law. I personally think it's reasonable to have a law against murder, but that's just me. Food regulation is just an extension of that law, because people who produce tainted food are well aware of what they're doing for a quick buck.
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 20:05 (UTC)That is not even close to what I said.
What I actually said is just because you believe something to be stupid does not make it so. Even if it can be shown to be stupid in the general case there can be cases where it is the perfectly reasonable and logical thing to do.
"Alright, you just don't believe regulations actually do what they set out to do."
Again, not even close to what I said. I was making a statement on the possibility of ever achieving perfection. No system of regulation could EVER prevent all instances of tainted food reaching market. The best argument you can put forth in favor of regulation is that it does the best job of any other possible system, but in several discussions on this topic you have never even attempted to make that argument.
"Been inside a meat factory that was safety tested? You think it didn't need to be before that? I don't know, I don't really see how you can support your claims here."
I don't need to because I never made the claim that things have not improved since 1900, I made the argument that the regulation does no and cannot prevent all instances of tainted food. Would you like for me to post the long litany of food recalls that have happened in just the last 5 years alone? Clearly the regulations do not prevent tainted food from reaching the market because it happens all the time. Ergo at best the regulatory system is a marginal improvement over other systems of food safety.
"So, you would be opposed to the government requiring testing of food products period?"
I'm a rational anarchist, you can have whatever laws you think are necessary, however I think such a law is stupid and will do more to line the pockets of big business than do anything to improve food quality.
"You think it should be every man for himself?"
Nope, never said that, in fact as I have mentioned several times I believe agencies like Consumers Union can do a far better job than government regulation.
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 22:28 (UTC)No, this is exactly what I am saying. I don't know why people always assume I'm arguing for the ideal when I'm not. I guess because it's easier to argue against me if you just assume my position to be something that it's not. Like if I'm for public education as opposed to private education it does not mean that I do not believe a society can exist without public education, or that public education is perfect, or any of these things. I'm sick of answering replies to arguments I never made.
Ergo at best the regulatory system is a marginal improvement over other systems of food safety.
Well, your main contention seems to be denying the correlation between food safety regulation and improved food safety. This isn't a matter of logic or analogies, just pure historical fact.
Here's one encyclopedic history of the matter: http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Law.Food.and.Drug.Regulation
Just a cursory skim of that source seems to agree with my position, but I'm not planning to convince you. It's up to you to look at what you can, if you want, and make a conclusion based on the evidence.
I'm a rational anarchist, you can have whatever laws you think are necessary, however I think such a law is stupid and will do more to line the pockets of big business than do anything to improve food quality.
I disagree. I believe food testing is an essential part of the process, whether done by the producers themselves or by the government. One of the externalities of food production is that if one batch gets contaminated, it's possible to spread to everything that's being produced there. There's a reason why we're so hard on certain foods like beef in terms of testing; the bacteria there is extremely contagious.
If the company has to issue a massive recall on all of its beef products, I daresay that act is far more expensive than mandatory testing. Maybe over time it events out, but always remember that there are consequences associated with any decision.
Nope, never said that, in fact as I have mentioned several times I believe agencies like Consumers Union can do a far better job than government regulation.
I think without the power of enforcement, consumer unions tend to just blow a lot of hot air. Mega-corporations will just ignore them or snuff them out with superior marketing. This is pretty cynical, but that's my take on it.
(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 03:53 (UTC)I know that is exactly what you are saying, I wasn't claiming any different. What I was doing is pointing out that you have never actually offered any evidence in support of the position. You stated it as a truism and then argued from there. I am telling you that your truism is not being accepted as proven so your entire argument falls apart unless you have some evidence somewhere that government regulations offer a measurable improvement over all possible alternatives.
I am practically begging you to try to support that argument here and you are not doing it, the closest you come is to say "well we passed the regulations and then food got safer", which is like my saying the New England Patriots never won the Superbowl until after Al Qaeda attacked on 9-11 therefore if Al Qaeda had not attacked the Patriots would never have won a Superbowl.
Yes, we passed the regulations, and the food got safer but there were a million other factors flying around at the same time including a massive increase in science and technology and a massive increase in public concern about health. Those 2 forces alone would have driven the food to get safer, perhaps not as safe as the regulations, or perhaps left to their own devices even better systems of safety would have been developed.
In the end however simply saying A happened before B therefore A caused B is sloppy thinking at best, and more likely intentionally disingenuous to prove a point.
So what evidence do you have that regulation and not improved science and technology was the primary driver of increases in food safety?
(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 05:44 (UTC)Prior to the early industrial period, people just ate whatever local produce they had. They could inspect it for themselves, but they didn't have jars and food coloring to mask the rottenness of the food. The centralization of the meat industry and the rise of processed foods are just a couple of the reasons for the rise of food-borne illness. It was becoming easier and easier to misinform people and hide the nastiness of food. Food quality was going down until the regulations, not up.
Remember that the regulations that required farmers to pasteurize milk before they could sell it on the open market plummeted rates of tuberculosis. This is a direct cause and effect, not correlation, as acquiring TB through unpasteurized milk is a very well documented process.
For the trend of food quality to be reversed so sharply I must attribute this to regulations. Food testing, safe processing and such- these are all things that directly impacted the quality of food. To say the intermediary process of food testing did not cause tainted food to never reach shelves is an argument that I can't fathom anyone having. That's also a direct cause and effect relationship.
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 20:05 (UTC)Oh I absolutely agree to truth in labeling laws, well that is not quite true because I do not believe that we need separate laws for them, more generic anti fraud laws will suffice but yes requiring accurate information about the product you are buying is entirely consistent with libertarian thought.
That being said you characterization of companies in the late 19th century knowingly selling tainted food is inaccurate. The Germ Theory of disease was not a generally accepted scientific theorem until around 1880 and not conclusively proven until the 1890's. The pure food and drug act was passed a mere 2 decades later in 1906.
It is not so much that people were being denied information, it was that at the time most people didn't know what information was important. This is also why they were "not liable", because at that time the overwhelming majority of people who did get sick had absolutely no idea of the cause and so no lawsuits were ever filed and if they were there would have been no actual evidence to support the theory.
Ultimately here is the problem with your entire premise. You are seeing a correlation between the passing of food safety regulation and food safety improving and assuming that one caused the other and ignoring all other possible causes for that improvement such as technological and scientific advancement.
Even if you could show that government regulation is the primary reason behind improvements in food safety this does not mean than the 100 years of science and engineering that have occurred since then would simply disappear if the regulations were repealed. If that happened food would not go back to the "bad old days of "robber barons", in fact companies would be scrambling to find anyone that consumers would trust to certify them as being safe and consumers hearing horror stories like yours wouldn't buy anything that wasn't certified safe and our food would actually get even safer than it is today.
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 22:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 03:44 (UTC)Do you have any citations?
However once again, even if you can come up with an example I can answer every one of them with an instance where government regulation has failed just as miserably if not moreso and so you still have not proven that government regulation is actually a superior option because your primary criticism of alternative systems is that they fail, but we have ample evidence that government regulation fails regularly as well, so where is the improvement?
What does government regulation offer us that no other system can?
Every possible benefit can be achieved in alternative ways and the drawbacks of the alternatives all exist within government regulation.
(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 05:51 (UTC)I'd welcome libertarians to make their own proposals, but if the solution is to repeal all regulation go back to quite possibly the worst food sanitation conditions this country has ever had, I think I'll stick with this system.
The thing is, I don't want to defend this system. It's not the best, and it has a lot of room for improvement, but you keep putting me in a position where you want me to try to defend it. My only argument is that in 1906, we needed regulation and we needed it badly. Market forces could not stop the downward trend of food quality, and the government had to step in. I see no evidence that suggests this would be different had the government not stepped in, as the advancements in food safety actually require the producers to adopt the new, expensive safety precautions, and they didn't do so even after it became widely available (remember, there a lot of food producers that offered pure food, but they could not sway consumers to their side).
(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 03:47 (UTC)Why?
(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 03:55 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 04:02 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21/7/11 04:27 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21/7/11 05:16 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21/7/11 17:10 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 07:17 (UTC)Well, in market economics there is a fairly strict criteria of what is rational behaviour, so let's start with that, shall we?