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Quote by: BobbyO  Certainly, its a good market practice. Selling meat in which people get sick off all the time results in people not buying the meat.
The issue becomes whether the community can afford the distortion in the market. And in the case of meat inspections, it most certainly can. |
You haven't thought this through on a practical level.
Without regulation, producers could simply ~all~ not bother o inspect meat, in which case consumers wouldn't have access to safe meat, meaning they would ~have~ to buy potentially tainted meat.
Choice would only exist if enough producers voluntarily inspected it and installed safe handling practices, even though it would cost them money. Do you really believe that would happen? All they would have to do would be to form and alliance with other producers in which all agreed not to undercut the others by producing a safer product, which is likely what they would do. Look at any country which has no such health regulations. China is a good example. The Chinese don't have choice because ~all~ the products are potentially unsafe.
Then there's the fact that consumers would not even know which meat was tainted and which was not, because the only way we find out for sure is through inspections, which would no longer happen without regulation.
There's no other way to prove which specific product made you sick. If you come down with e. coli, how do you know it was from the burger you ate, or the lettuce on it, or any number of other things you ate and drank?
You've yet to explain what you mean by "distortion of the market", and what's this about what the community can "afford"? Are you saying regulation should be allowed in this instance because of some vague references to what the community can afford?
If so, then you have to admit that the principle the other poster was arguing is sound, in which case, you have no argument left.
You can't say on the one hand that regulation is not needed and harms commerce, yet on the other say it's allowable in certain instances.
Either the principle stands, or it falls.