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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 20:11 (UTC)That's the problem right there. You have no right to stop them, and no reason to stop them. Also, you are concluding that it's not rational just because you don't understand it. That's irrational right there.
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 22:35 (UTC)If I don't stop them, many negative externalities arise which is bad for a society. The cycle of poverty won't stop itself, and making life expectancy so low that people leave orphans/widows or infant mortality so high that they're forced to have multiple kids just so a few of them may survive is not healthy for a society. A few years of food regulation and you see drastic improvements in health across the board, that to me is worth the small opportunity cost.
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 22:45 (UTC)No they don't, and no they aren't. You are making an unfounded assertion, not an argument.
And it certainly won't stop any faster with you taking away cheaper food options and making other foods more expensive.
As others pointed out, you are asserting that it was the food regulation that improved health and not the actual improvements in knowledge and technology that improved health. That doesn't prove anything.
(no subject)
Date: 19/7/11 23:16 (UTC)Yes, because driving cars is the same thing as eating rotten food. Can you people do anything besides make ridiculous analogies? "Both of these things are potentially harmful to you, therefore they are exactly equal." You know, except driving a car has upsides, what is your proposed upside for eating rotten food that makes it equal to driving a car?
No they don't, and no they aren't. You are making an unfounded assertion, not an argument.
Yeah man, there's no drawbacks to a society eating rotten food. Completely unfounded.
And it certainly won't stop any faster with you taking away cheaper food options and making other foods more expensive.
Cheaper food options that kill you is not a good way to stop poverty, unless you want to stop the cycle by killing all the poor people.
As others pointed out, you are asserting that it was the food regulation that improved health and not the actual improvements in knowledge and technology that improved health. That doesn't prove anything.
What are you talking about? Food quality as actually devolving. 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.
(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 01:02 (UTC)Not dying of starvation is considered good in some circles.
(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 01:07 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 01:11 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 02:41 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 02:48 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 03:05 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 03:41 (UTC)That should tell you your assertion that no regulations equals "everyone dies" is a fallacy.
(no subject)
Date: 20/7/11 05:31 (UTC)