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Your comment is odd considering this flaw is occurring in a system that is not 'the' libertarian ideal and the solution is close to the libertarian ideal and is

Your comment is odd considering this flaw is occurring in a system that is not 'the' libertarian ideal and the solution is close to the libertarian ideal and is working. Consumers are being informed right now. A scandal can kill a company or a private inspector in a way that it can't kill a corporate oligarchy or bad regulation. Private inspectors have to compete for consumer dollars. Government regulators, at best, have to compete for less than half the votes of registered voters; or they are simply appointed. In the system we have now, there will be lawsuits, but they will be capped and won't mean the death of these corporations, so will largely be meaningless and likely the entire thing will still be overall profitable to these companies. Any attempt to regulate will be met with lobbying efforts to make that regulation competition-restricting and corporation-protecting while giving lip service to protecting consumers.

nerfhammer 10y ago
Scandals and regulations aren't mutually exclusive, you seem to be saying they are?
glenstein 10y ago
I think the real lesson of the story isn't that the system is "working", it's that we've (society) been purchasing tons and tons of a product for who knows how long that has been inauthentic, without any idea that it was the case. How long has this been happening? For how many other products is this the case? It's certainly better that we know and (hopefully) some corrective action is taken, but overall I'd read it as a signal of dysfunction. And I don' think macintux is suggesting that we're presently within the libertarian ideal, rather we're in the universe where it's considered a responsibility of the state to prevent these kinds of things from happening, yet they are still happening. So look what happened here, and imagine what would happen with even fewer failsafes...
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  I think one of the reasons this particular situation went on this long is that aloe is kind of a bullshit product in the first place. What do you use it for, sunburn? Can you honestly tell the difference between some putting some jelly with aloe in it on your sunburn vs some other jelly? I don't think it's obviously effective in the way that Tylenol is on a fever or headache.
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    FWIW, aloe isn't really a good remedy for sunburn. A sunburn, like any other skinburn, should be treated quickly with lots of running water slightly colder than lukewarm; i.e. a cold shower. That's a lot more efficient due to basic physics.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - dllthomas 10y ago
      Could you spell out the basic physics? I am having trouble connecting it to anything I learned in school. Biology/chemistry seems substantially more relevant.
      - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        To help heal the sunburn you must cool the skin. Aloe can only cool by a very small amount, as compared to running cool water.
        stouset 10y ago
        Sunburn has nothing to do with temperature. You can get a third-degree sunburn in sub-freezing temperatures.
        Kroniker 10y ago
        It has to do with UV-irritation, I believe. This guy might be talking about getting burned by the sun, perhaps by being too close ;)
        semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        Sunburn is inflammation of the skin. Inflammation is typically treated by cooling (e.g. when you put ice on a sprained ankle).
        10y ago
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  > we've (society) been purchasing tons and tons of a product for who knows how long that has been inauthentic, without any idea that it was the case Also, whenever this happens, one should stop and consider: "Why are we buying aloe vera products in the first place, when millions of people using the product for years are unable to detect that it's fake?" If this happened with something tangible, say replacing all regular coke with diet coke without changing the labels, it would be noticed immediately. Whenever people buy something which they are completely unable to differentiate from a fake, are they really being defrauded when someone sells them the fake?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - klagermkii 10y ago
    > Whenever people buy something which they are completely unable to differentiate from a fake, are they really being defrauded when someone sells them the fake? Yes.
    - mzw_mzw 10y ago
      I think the point was that the real thing is just as much (or as little) of a fraud as the fake is.
    - aarongolliver 10y ago
      Especially because, if someone's been buying fakes all their life, how could they possibly know what real Aloe is like?
  - burkaman 10y ago
    What if it was something like soap? How could you possibly tell if you were buying fake soap? If you get sick, do you immediately suspect that your soap supplier has defrauded you?
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
- cmurf 10y ago
  I see it as an example of both market and government failure. Edit: FTFA "There’s no watchdog assuring that aloe products are what they say they are. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t approve cosmetics before they’re sold and has never levied a fine for selling fake aloe." OK so I'm wrong, it's just market failure, the government isn't even involved in this.
  - Steel_Phoenix 10y ago
    Not entirely wrong. You're proof that people have the expectation that products are being well regulated. I think most people do assume this, even if they can't name a law or regulatory authority that would do so. In a way, we're getting the worst of both worlds. The lack of oversight from an unregulated environment with the consumer complacency of a regulated one. If we could downplay the amount of oversight on products, people might be more skeptical as consumers. Putting analytical technology or services in the hands of consumers would be even better.
  - sqldba 10y ago
    It's weird that there's no general law covering this in America. In Australia we have the Australian Consumer Law which covers basics like, "It has to do/be/contain what it says it does," otherwise you get a refund or replacement. I... don't know how anyone can survive without this most basic protection.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    When there's such a blatant and obvious breach of the law, in this case a fraud, against a large number of citizens (all the people who bought the product), then shouldn't the government themselves wade in and initiate legal proceedings - with an independent judiciary what's the problem with that? Surely there is a government department that covers product fraud? In the UK we have Trading Standards (and the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) [which might be a NGO?]) that would both be in part responsible to take action on the consumers behalf ... presumably there's some action needed in the UK now, can't imagine this is only in USA. Mind you from the article it sounds like the fraud is in quantity of Aloe Vera added; that these products may have 1ppm of Aloe Vera or something??
skrap 10y ago
> Consumers are being informed right now. A scandal can kill a company or a private inspector in a way that it can't kill a corporate oligarchy or bad regulation. I'm not convinced. Scandals don't scale. How many scandals per year do people actually have the attention and outrage to push through into action? 10? 100? It's my opinion that we need regulation to set the ground rules of our interactions with companies, which will always ALWAYS be tempted to deceive us. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't spent 2 minutes in any corporate marketing department.
- nickik 10y ago
  I agree. scandal is not enough. If somebody is guilty of fraud he should be sued by everybody. In a good legal system many small claims should be bought and then somebody could sue the company for money. This would be a superior version of a class action lawsuit. A version that is actually practical and would scale. Its also not a new idea, there are historical examples of this.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    >In a good legal system many small claims should be bought and then somebody could sue the company for money. This would be a superior version of a class action lawsuit. A version that is actually practical and would scale. This exists, it's called small claims court.
    - nickik 10y ago
      That goes in the right direction but there are many problem that hinder it from scaling. A organisation can not buy millions of claims from consumers and the fight a full class action lawsuit without any of these people being involve.
      - nommm-nommm 10y ago
        You make no sense. If you want to sue CVS for selling you fake aloe go ahead, it costs less than $100 to file a small claims case in my state and CVS will very likely settle with you outside of court because it's cheaper than sending someone to court to defend the company.
bertiewhykovich 10y ago
lol yeah, corporations are constantly shut down when they betray consumer trust. The Chicago stockyards went belly-up when "The Jungle" came out.
- jamoes 10y ago
  "The Jungle" is a work of fiction, in case you weren't aware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
  - bertiewhykovich 10y ago
    Saw this article and just ran with the title, eh? https://www.libertariannews.org/2012/11/15/meat-packing-lies-exposing-the-fiction-of-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle/ https://www.libertariannews.org/2012/11/15/meat-packing-lies... Turns out it doesn't actually "expose the fiction of 'The Jungle.'" It cites "a 1906 report by the Bureau of Animal Industry" -- and nothing else. It then runs headlong into a classic libertarian diatribe against regulations. And even if "The Jungle" /was/ pure fiction (instead of just fictionalize) -- readers didn't know that. And, despite their revulsion, the stockyards kept chugging along.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    "Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business.[4] In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. "
nitwit005 10y ago
> is close to the libertarian ideal and is working Working to some extent, right? There are whole categories of products that are heavily faked or adulterated.
Retric 10y ago
These companies are being sued which is the libertarian solution. However, clearly that did not prevent this from happening because running a business that will eventually be sued to oblivion is still profitable now. So, best case nobody notices and they win, worst case someone notices and they still win. Much like large companies use 3rd party's to have undocumented people clean their toilets without being exposed to any real risks.
- beguiledfoil 10y ago
  The libertarian solution is appeal to a higher authority? Is this one of those turtles things?
  - coryfklein 10y ago
    Just because there is a higher authority doesn't require that infinite higher authorities exist. One possible libertarian replacement of courts are Stefan Molyneux's Dispute Resolution Organizations, but that's probably not the only way it could be done.
Frondo 10y ago
You know what I don't get? How would regulations (the bane of the libertarian existence) be burdensome in this situation? The regulation could say something like, products labeled "aloe vera" must contain mechanically extracted aloe vera without chemical alteration. I would guess that that's what most people who're trying to buy aloe vera are actually trying to buy. They're probably not trying to buy aloe vera with sugar added or with various additives replacing the aloe vera bits or whatever. (And isn't this who regulations are for? The buyers?) People who want the sugary aloe vera could still buy it, but it'd have to be called something else. "Burn liniment with aloe vera in it somehow," maybe. How would that burden manufacturers? (By the way, I do agree with the libertarian angst around regulations, but mostly where those regulations are used as weapons against historically disadvantaged communities. Like the regulations around hairdressing that make people do some ungodly huge number of training hours to be able to braid cornrows for money. The law often gets crafted to keep poor folks or minorities down, and that pisses me off. Get rid of that shit yesterday!)
- zdragnar 10y ago
  The existence of a regulatory structure means that if it's on a shelf, 99% of consumers trust it (see also nutritional supplements). The defacto assumption is that if it wasn't safe / correctly labeled, the government has done or will do something about it. The libertarian ideal would see consumers lose that fake safety net in favor of private organisations finding and providing that information; the specific mechanisms would vary but likely be not very different than what the government does now. The important piece is that people would stop assuming that words on a package are imperically true. It's a bit like the argument that Trump would have won the popular vote without the electoral college... because it existed, he campaigned differently than if it hadn't. Whether or not he actually could have gotten the popular vote is impossible to know at this point, but it's a hypothesis just the same.
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    Wait but then why wouldn't the private organizations be the "fake safety net?"
x0x0 10y ago
We explicitly excluded supplements and cosmetics from fda regulation in 1994, at least in part due to industry lies culminating in ads featuring Mel Gibson showing militarized police breaking into a house to take away vitamins.
lern_too_spel 10y ago
This flaw is occurring in a system for which the products in question are unregulated. Imagine how much worse it would be if the libertarians had their way and deregulated everything else.
vacri 10y ago
> Private inspectors have to compete for consumer dollars. No they don't. They just have to compete for 'dollars', not 'consumer dollars'. Big industry will quite happily pay for favourable reports. And seriously, who is going to individually pay for an inspector of a bottle of aloe? A big ticket item like a house, sure, but a cheap bottle of goo?

nerfhammer 10y ago

Scandals and regulations aren't mutually exclusive, you seem to be saying they are?

glenstein 10y ago

I think the real lesson of the story isn't that the system is "working", it's that we've (society) been purchasing tons and tons of a product for who knows how long that has been inauthentic, without any idea that it was the case. How long has this been happening? For how many other products is this the case? It's certainly better that we know and (hopefully) some corrective action is taken, but overall I'd read it as a signal of dysfunction. And I don' think macintux is suggesting that we're presently within the libertarian ideal, rather we're in the universe where it's considered a responsibility of the state to prevent these kinds of things from happening, yet they are still happening. So look what happened here, and imagine what would happen with even fewer failsafes...

nsxwolf 10y ago
I think one of the reasons this particular situation went on this long is that aloe is kind of a bullshit product in the first place. What do you use it for, sunburn? Can you honestly tell the difference between some putting some jelly with aloe in it on your sunburn vs some other jelly? I don't think it's obviously effective in the way that Tylenol is on a fever or headache.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  FWIW, aloe isn't really a good remedy for sunburn. A sunburn, like any other skinburn, should be treated quickly with lots of running water slightly colder than lukewarm; i.e. a cold shower. That's a lot more efficient due to basic physics.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    Could you spell out the basic physics? I am having trouble connecting it to anything I learned in school. Biology/chemistry seems substantially more relevant.
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      To help heal the sunburn you must cool the skin. Aloe can only cool by a very small amount, as compared to running cool water.
      - stouset 10y ago
        Sunburn has nothing to do with temperature. You can get a third-degree sunburn in sub-freezing temperatures.
        Kroniker 10y ago
        It has to do with UV-irritation, I believe. This guy might be talking about getting burned by the sun, perhaps by being too close ;)
        semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        Sunburn is inflammation of the skin. Inflammation is typically treated by cooling (e.g. when you put ice on a sprained ankle).
      - 10y ago
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
> we've (society) been purchasing tons and tons of a product for who knows how long that has been inauthentic, without any idea that it was the case Also, whenever this happens, one should stop and consider: "Why are we buying aloe vera products in the first place, when millions of people using the product for years are unable to detect that it's fake?" If this happened with something tangible, say replacing all regular coke with diet coke without changing the labels, it would be noticed immediately. Whenever people buy something which they are completely unable to differentiate from a fake, are they really being defrauded when someone sells them the fake?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- klagermkii 10y ago
  > Whenever people buy something which they are completely unable to differentiate from a fake, are they really being defrauded when someone sells them the fake? Yes.
  - mzw_mzw 10y ago
    I think the point was that the real thing is just as much (or as little) of a fraud as the fake is.
  - aarongolliver 10y ago
    Especially because, if someone's been buying fakes all their life, how could they possibly know what real Aloe is like?
- burkaman 10y ago
  What if it was something like soap? How could you possibly tell if you were buying fake soap? If you get sick, do you immediately suspect that your soap supplier has defrauded you?
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
cmurf 10y ago
I see it as an example of both market and government failure. Edit: FTFA "There’s no watchdog assuring that aloe products are what they say they are. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t approve cosmetics before they’re sold and has never levied a fine for selling fake aloe." OK so I'm wrong, it's just market failure, the government isn't even involved in this.
- Steel_Phoenix 10y ago
  Not entirely wrong. You're proof that people have the expectation that products are being well regulated. I think most people do assume this, even if they can't name a law or regulatory authority that would do so. In a way, we're getting the worst of both worlds. The lack of oversight from an unregulated environment with the consumer complacency of a regulated one. If we could downplay the amount of oversight on products, people might be more skeptical as consumers. Putting analytical technology or services in the hands of consumers would be even better.
- sqldba 10y ago
  It's weird that there's no general law covering this in America. In Australia we have the Australian Consumer Law which covers basics like, "It has to do/be/contain what it says it does," otherwise you get a refund or replacement. I... don't know how anyone can survive without this most basic protection.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  When there's such a blatant and obvious breach of the law, in this case a fraud, against a large number of citizens (all the people who bought the product), then shouldn't the government themselves wade in and initiate legal proceedings - with an independent judiciary what's the problem with that? Surely there is a government department that covers product fraud? In the UK we have Trading Standards (and the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) [which might be a NGO?]) that would both be in part responsible to take action on the consumers behalf ... presumably there's some action needed in the UK now, can't imagine this is only in USA. Mind you from the article it sounds like the fraud is in quantity of Aloe Vera added; that these products may have 1ppm of Aloe Vera or something??

skrap 10y ago

> Consumers are being informed right now. A scandal can kill a company or a private inspector in a way that it can't kill a corporate oligarchy or bad regulation. I'm not convinced. Scandals don't scale. How many scandals per year do people actually have the attention and outrage to push through into action? 10? 100? It's my opinion that we need regulation to set the ground rules of our interactions with companies, which will always ALWAYS be tempted to deceive us. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't spent 2 minutes in any corporate marketing department.

nickik 10y ago
I agree. scandal is not enough. If somebody is guilty of fraud he should be sued by everybody. In a good legal system many small claims should be bought and then somebody could sue the company for money. This would be a superior version of a class action lawsuit. A version that is actually practical and would scale. Its also not a new idea, there are historical examples of this.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  >In a good legal system many small claims should be bought and then somebody could sue the company for money. This would be a superior version of a class action lawsuit. A version that is actually practical and would scale. This exists, it's called small claims court.
  - nickik 10y ago
    That goes in the right direction but there are many problem that hinder it from scaling. A organisation can not buy millions of claims from consumers and the fight a full class action lawsuit without any of these people being involve.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      You make no sense. If you want to sue CVS for selling you fake aloe go ahead, it costs less than $100 to file a small claims case in my state and CVS will very likely settle with you outside of court because it's cheaper than sending someone to court to defend the company.

bertiewhykovich 10y ago

lol yeah, corporations are constantly shut down when they betray consumer trust. The Chicago stockyards went belly-up when "The Jungle" came out.

jamoes 10y ago
"The Jungle" is a work of fiction, in case you weren't aware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
- bertiewhykovich 10y ago
  Saw this article and just ran with the title, eh? https://www.libertariannews.org/2012/11/15/meat-packing-lies-exposing-the-fiction-of-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle/ https://www.libertariannews.org/2012/11/15/meat-packing-lies... Turns out it doesn't actually "expose the fiction of 'The Jungle.'" It cites "a 1906 report by the Bureau of Animal Industry" -- and nothing else. It then runs headlong into a classic libertarian diatribe against regulations. And even if "The Jungle" /was/ pure fiction (instead of just fictionalize) -- readers didn't know that. And, despite their revulsion, the stockyards kept chugging along.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  "Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business.[4] In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. "

nitwit005 10y ago

> is close to the libertarian ideal and is working Working to some extent, right? There are whole categories of products that are heavily faked or adulterated.

Retric 10y ago

These companies are being sued which is the libertarian solution. However, clearly that did not prevent this from happening because running a business that will eventually be sued to oblivion is still profitable now. So, best case nobody notices and they win, worst case someone notices and they still win. Much like large companies use 3rd party's to have undocumented people clean their toilets without being exposed to any real risks.

beguiledfoil 10y ago
The libertarian solution is appeal to a higher authority? Is this one of those turtles things?
- coryfklein 10y ago
  Just because there is a higher authority doesn't require that infinite higher authorities exist. One possible libertarian replacement of courts are Stefan Molyneux's Dispute Resolution Organizations, but that's probably not the only way it could be done.

Frondo 10y ago

You know what I don't get? How would regulations (the bane of the libertarian existence) be burdensome in this situation? The regulation could say something like, products labeled "aloe vera" must contain mechanically extracted aloe vera without chemical alteration. I would guess that that's what most people who're trying to buy aloe vera are actually trying to buy. They're probably not trying to buy aloe vera with sugar added or with various additives replacing the aloe vera bits or whatever. (And isn't this who regulations are for? The buyers?) People who want the sugary aloe vera could still buy it, but it'd have to be called something else. "Burn liniment with aloe vera in it somehow," maybe. How would that burden manufacturers? (By the way, I do agree with the libertarian angst around regulations, but mostly where those regulations are used as weapons against historically disadvantaged communities. Like the regulations around hairdressing that make people do some ungodly huge number of training hours to be able to braid cornrows for money. The law often gets crafted to keep poor folks or minorities down, and that pisses me off. Get rid of that shit yesterday!)

zdragnar 10y ago
The existence of a regulatory structure means that if it's on a shelf, 99% of consumers trust it (see also nutritional supplements). The defacto assumption is that if it wasn't safe / correctly labeled, the government has done or will do something about it. The libertarian ideal would see consumers lose that fake safety net in favor of private organisations finding and providing that information; the specific mechanisms would vary but likely be not very different than what the government does now. The important piece is that people would stop assuming that words on a package are imperically true. It's a bit like the argument that Trump would have won the popular vote without the electoral college... because it existed, he campaigned differently than if it hadn't. Whether or not he actually could have gotten the popular vote is impossible to know at this point, but it's a hypothesis just the same.
- ethanbond 10y ago
  Wait but then why wouldn't the private organizations be the "fake safety net?"

x0x0 10y ago

We explicitly excluded supplements and cosmetics from fda regulation in 1994, at least in part due to industry lies culminating in ads featuring Mel Gibson showing militarized police breaking into a house to take away vitamins.

lern_too_spel 10y ago

This flaw is occurring in a system for which the products in question are unregulated. Imagine how much worse it would be if the libertarians had their way and deregulated everything else.

vacri 10y ago

> Private inspectors have to compete for consumer dollars. No they don't. They just have to compete for 'dollars', not 'consumer dollars'. Big industry will quite happily pay for favourable reports. And seriously, who is going to individually pay for an inspector of a bottle of aloe? A big ticket item like a house, sure, but a cheap bottle of goo?