5 ms·

So, are mandated calorie counts on foods, (evil) government intervention in the free market or a useful boost to creating an efficient market by trying to help

by jbert 18y ago

So, are mandated calorie counts on foods, (evil) government intervention in the free market or a useful boost to creating an efficient market by trying to help create that essential prerequisite, the informed consumer? Or both, I guess, since free market (buyer+seller do what they want) is perhaps only tangentially related to perfect/efficient market (actors all rational, perfect information). Are their any parallels in the tech world (perhaps minimum specs/compatability or age/content labelling on some software, i.e. games)? Would it be useful if there was more pre-purchase consumer-level information on software or tech products?

Alex3917 18y ago
"Are mandated calorie counts on foods, (evil) government intervention in the free market or a useful boost to creating an efficient market by trying to help create that essential prerequisite" A good example of orientalism.
- jbert 18y ago
  "A good example of orientalism." Could you elaborate? Is it because I'm being dualistic in my apparent mindset? Surely that's more occidental? (Actually it was on purpose, but never mind).
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    I meant because you are imagining this platonic ideal of the free market and then going out and trying to compare how real world systems sync with that ideal. In any event the justification behind the free market being the best economic system is that it is the most efficient way to allocate goods and services to the people who want them the most. So asking whether or not this reform interferes with the free market doesn't make much sense in this case.
tocomment 18y ago
I consider myself a libertarian on most issues, but more of an agnostic on how well the free market works, and what the role of government should be there. Issues like this are really tough for me to decide.
robg 18y ago
I don't see why this type of government intervention should worry anyone. It's about information transparency. Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? There are also shelf tags, in supermarkets, dictating price per quantity. How do any of those measures hurt the free market? If anything, it forces food vendors to better evaluate their products in contrast to their competition. And that seems to be exactly what's happening. A little bit of transparency goes a long way. Seems to me, that's a perfect role for government. The government argument for me isn't all or none. It's: How much?
- jbert 18y ago
  > Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? Well, it's fairly close to an issue which has been controversial: whether to require the labelling of GM milk. Personally, I'm happy for there to be a goodly amount of regulation about consumables. I don't think a raw free market (if you sell food which makes people sick, your brand will suffer) provides enough protection in that case. I was really trying to think about the benefits+costs of forcing sellers to give more information to consumers, and how that might translate to other products. (Warning: - this program is written in C - it may suffer from buffer overruns. - this program is written in .NET/java - it may require a huge download in order to run - etc) Slightly more seriously, how about a govt regulation which required showing typical working set size of your program in operation in Mbytes? How about being required to notify users that your software patches system-level functionality? (no more DRM "rootkits" )?
  - cstejerean 18y ago
    If I could create backup copies of myself and/or run copies of myself in a VM I wouldn't really care about labels on food, medicine or even FDA approvals.
    - jbert 18y ago
      You might, if you find out too late that your liver has been compromised and rolling back to a previous snapshot means you're not married anymore.
danielh 18y ago
If it is evil government intervention, what about warning labels on cigarettes?
orib 18y ago
Take this with a grain of salt, since I am not an economist. However, I think that Government intervention isn't evil. For the free market economy to work, a number of assumptions are made in the model. For example, we assume that consumers are well informed, and make judgements on the product's attributes. We also assume that there are no significant externalities, and all costs are actually exposed to the companies. Labelling the foods with their actual properties, testing them for safety, and other similar government intervention can actually bring things closer to the ideal free market economy where the consumers know what they're buying, and the costs of environmental cleanup are passed on to the companies causing the damage.

by jbert 18y ago

Alex3917 18y ago

"Are mandated calorie counts on foods, (evil) government intervention in the free market or a useful boost to creating an efficient market by trying to help create that essential prerequisite" A good example of orientalism.

jbert 18y ago
"A good example of orientalism." Could you elaborate? Is it because I'm being dualistic in my apparent mindset? Surely that's more occidental? (Actually it was on purpose, but never mind).
- Alex3917 18y ago
  I meant because you are imagining this platonic ideal of the free market and then going out and trying to compare how real world systems sync with that ideal. In any event the justification behind the free market being the best economic system is that it is the most efficient way to allocate goods and services to the people who want them the most. So asking whether or not this reform interferes with the free market doesn't make much sense in this case.

tocomment 18y ago

I consider myself a libertarian on most issues, but more of an agnostic on how well the free market works, and what the role of government should be there. Issues like this are really tough for me to decide.

robg 18y ago

I don't see why this type of government intervention should worry anyone. It's about information transparency. Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? There are also shelf tags, in supermarkets, dictating price per quantity. How do any of those measures hurt the free market? If anything, it forces food vendors to better evaluate their products in contrast to their competition. And that seems to be exactly what's happening. A little bit of transparency goes a long way. Seems to me, that's a perfect role for government. The government argument for me isn't all or none. It's: How much?

jbert 18y ago
> Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? Well, it's fairly close to an issue which has been controversial: whether to require the labelling of GM milk. Personally, I'm happy for there to be a goodly amount of regulation about consumables. I don't think a raw free market (if you sell food which makes people sick, your brand will suffer) provides enough protection in that case. I was really trying to think about the benefits+costs of forcing sellers to give more information to consumers, and how that might translate to other products. (Warning: - this program is written in C - it may suffer from buffer overruns. - this program is written in .NET/java - it may require a huge download in order to run - etc) Slightly more seriously, how about a govt regulation which required showing typical working set size of your program in operation in Mbytes? How about being required to notify users that your software patches system-level functionality? (no more DRM "rootkits" )?
- cstejerean 18y ago
  If I could create backup copies of myself and/or run copies of myself in a VM I wouldn't really care about labels on food, medicine or even FDA approvals.
  - jbert 18y ago
    You might, if you find out too late that your liver has been compromised and rolling back to a previous snapshot means you're not married anymore.

danielh 18y ago

If it is evil government intervention, what about warning labels on cigarettes?

orib 18y ago

Take this with a grain of salt, since I am not an economist. However, I think that Government intervention isn't evil. For the free market economy to work, a number of assumptions are made in the model. For example, we assume that consumers are well informed, and make judgements on the product's attributes. We also assume that there are no significant externalities, and all costs are actually exposed to the companies. Labelling the foods with their actual properties, testing them for safety, and other similar government intervention can actually bring things closer to the ideal free market economy where the consumers know what they're buying, and the costs of environmental cleanup are passed on to the companies causing the damage.