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> Economic signaling based on opinion of good/bad is the bane of the free market. Must we worship at the altar of the free market a priori? The "free market"

> Economic signaling based on opinion of good/bad is the bane of the free market. Must we worship at the altar of the free market a priori? The "free market" in the case of food has had disastrous health consequences by optimizing for profits over health. The entire incentive structure is to manufacture foods with an addictive quality out of the cheapest possible ingredients, because the negative health outcomes are too distant and dilute to be factored in in any meaningful way. There is a marketing advantage to claiming some processed food is healthy, and there is ample science available that can be distilled down into an unending cycle of specious claims that fall apart on the mildest inspection, but who really has the time to evaluate those claims anyway? That's not to say government regulation is a silver bullet, but the government does ostensibly represent the people, and what other organization has the clout to balance out the fundamentally broken incentive structures within the food industry?

lend000 10y ago
Nope, a government that aims to prevent fraud produces the healthiest society. See my comments on the FDA/USDA discussion -- it would be best if they advised the public, but did not outright block products/services.
- mynameisvlad 10y ago
  Their advice means precisely zero when your choices are the cheap, processed, unhealthy food you can afford or the more expensive, healthy option that you can't. The parent commenter is right, the free market optimizes for cheap and addictive because it's what sells and what will continue producing sales for many years. There's absolutely no incentive for companies to produce even cheap healthy food because the addictive qualities are a much more secure bet that your customer will come back to your food in the future.
  - lend000 10y ago
    The incentive is that many people will pay a premium for healthy foods, which is why companies like Whole Foods exist and do quite well. Certainly not all, especially those who would have previously been facing hunger, so the industry will always exist. I agree there. So you can tax it and make it more expensive and inaccessible for poor people, but that does nothing to make producing healthy foods any easier. That's my point.

lend000 10y ago

Nope, a government that aims to prevent fraud produces the healthiest society. See my comments on the FDA/USDA discussion -- it would be best if they advised the public, but did not outright block products/services.

mynameisvlad 10y ago
Their advice means precisely zero when your choices are the cheap, processed, unhealthy food you can afford or the more expensive, healthy option that you can't. The parent commenter is right, the free market optimizes for cheap and addictive because it's what sells and what will continue producing sales for many years. There's absolutely no incentive for companies to produce even cheap healthy food because the addictive qualities are a much more secure bet that your customer will come back to your food in the future.
- lend000 10y ago
  The incentive is that many people will pay a premium for healthy foods, which is why companies like Whole Foods exist and do quite well. Certainly not all, especially those who would have previously been facing hunger, so the industry will always exist. I agree there. So you can tax it and make it more expensive and inaccessible for poor people, but that does nothing to make producing healthy foods any easier. That's my point.