4 ms·
In the case of food, what happens when the manufacturer uses a new additive in their food that happens to decrease your lifespan by 1 day every time you eat one
by bcrl 5y ago
In the case of food, what happens when the manufacturer uses a new additive in their food that happens to decrease your lifespan by 1 day every time you eat one serving. It just happens that this additive is cheaper than the previous ingredient that was used for the same purpose (as happens so often color / texture / ...) The manufacturer receives a benefit (decreased cost) while pushing the cost (decreased lifespan) on you, the consumer.
Now recognize that this happens across all industries in the world every single day. New things are discovered that displace old things. We don't know all of the consequences for the new shiny product when we start producing and selling it to mass markets. Sometimes the new things have major disadvantages that we just don't know at the time we start using them. Look at historical problems with CFCs (which lead to ozone holes in the atmosphere) PCBs (which cause birth defects and can cause cancer), or how neonicotinoids impact insects (which can lead to the deaths of beehives). If the vendor pushing these products had to bear the full cost of the consequences of their use, they might never have been widely accepted. Capitalism is and always will be imperfect in this regard.
- epistasis 5y agoThough externalities are a well-studied phenomenon and failure mode of capitalism, I think that it will be a problem for nearly any conceivable economic system. Any economic system will have to deal both with unintended and unknown consequences, as well as with any harm/benefit to society that is not accounted for in a trade.