Quote from: dscotese on July 19, 2014, 06:47:43 PM

Quote from: BIGbangTheory on July 19, 2014, 03:12:53 PM

If a producer of food were to not adhere to food safety rules then consumers could potentially die. This would likely result in the producer going out of business. With regulations this could be prevented.

The regulations and regulators must be paid for with taxes

It is a shame that people pay the taxes because that DOES support regulation and that DOES prevent it from happening. As a result more people are alive (which is good), but there are loads of food producers that don't create healthy food and are slowly killing everyone (which is bad, and outweighs the good of those few still being alive by several magnitudes). If we stopped supporting the regulation, we could get rid of the bad actors because they would no longer be protected from their small, agile, and often healthier competitors. Free the market, and you end up improving the world. Regulate it, and you make it more fragile.

Speaking of which, I just read and enjoyed Nassim Tableb's "Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder." I recommend it!

I would argue that no one would even bother to try to figure out what is good and what is bad for consumers if it wasn't for food regulations. If businesses didn't need to worry about keeping customers safe then why bother?