Subject:
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Re: Don Quixote puts away his lance (was Re: McDonalds set
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 28 Sep 1999 07:50:24 GMT
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Reply-To:
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lpieniazek@&spamless&novera.com
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Viewed:
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1345 times
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Josh Spaulding wrote:
> Lar said:
> > most of us would agree that
> > the market as a whole is well served by increased information.
>
> I agree. What do you think about governmentally implemented safety standards
> and
> labeling requirements? I suspect most Libertarians would suggest that the gov't
> has better things to do, but I like to know whether I'm eating carcinogens or
> driving a time bomb. And I'm not sure I want to entrust my safety to the
> integrity of manufacturers or to the profitability of third party organizations
> like Consumer Reports.
I think the issue Libertarians have with government regulation about
standards, quality, and labels is not with intent. We're willing to
grant, for the sake of argument, good intent(1). Our issue is just that
they don't, by and large, actually work as well as people think, and
there ARE better ways.
I've made the argument before so I will try to be brief.
Two related prongs -
1. You get what you measure. Set a standard that says you can have .1%
bone slivers in your ground beef, and lo and behold, that's what you
get. Set a standard that says you can have so many thousand e coli per
cc of milk, and that's what you get. The market is not competing on who
has the least, but rather on who can come closest to the standard.
Vigorous competition often produces better products in the absence of
any specific standard to serve as a shield to hide behind.
2. Standards shield manufacturers from strict liability and provide a
negligence defense. Ford was able to say "but the Pinto passed
government crash tests" and was able to take the business decision to
take x lawsuits a year at 1 million each instead of spending Y dollars a
car more. Had Ford executives been potentially jailable for negligence,
manslaughter and maybe even murder, you would have seen design changes a
lot sooner.
I would say that a lot of industries that are rather less regulated are
actually the safer and less polluting ones. Standards allow mediocrity
and stifle improvement. In my opinion. Better to use the common laws
against murder and fraud and negligence.
1 - except in the case where they are revenue sources disguised as
assistance, cf. the speed traps, hairdresser licensing requirements, and
so forth.
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ Member ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to
lugnet.
NOTE: I have left CTP, effective 18 June 99, and my CTP email
will not work after then. Please switch to my Novera ID.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Don Quixote puts away his lance
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| (...) I think competitive improvement requires the postulate of an informed, active consumer base, which does not seem descriptive of America today. Frankly, when I see ads for "Pumpernickel limestone shampoo - the tingle tells you it's better than (...) (25 years ago, 28-Sep-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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