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I totally agree with this, and I think this makes the point that social outrage can sometimes play a positive role. In an ideal world, we could get people to a
by Fede_V 8y ago
I totally agree with this, and I think this makes the point that social outrage can sometimes play a positive role.
In an ideal world, we could get people to act ethically because it's the right thing to do: if we can't do that, at least we can appeal to their self interest and point out how horribly this could backfire if people found out.
- Apocryphon 8y agoThis is also literally the claim that libertarians use to justify deregulation. "We don't need laws, if a company does bad things consumer would just naturally avoid them!" One would hope laissez-faire proponents are siding with the angry workers and disgusted customers in this case.
- chipotle_coyote 8y agoConsumers don't generally have sufficient information to avoid bad actors. Classic market theory, especially in its pop culture form, seems to largely ignore information imbalance -- market efficiency presumes buyers can make informed decisions, but sellers have no incentive to provide buyers with honest and complete information unless they believe doing so will result in a sale. Regulations that address this information imbalance arguably make markets more efficient, and I tend to be suspicious of any anti-regulation argument which takes the form of "compelling sellers to disclose information to consumers will raise prices and is therefore anti-consumer."