Ok. Youll.have to forgive this response for being limited because a) I'm on my phone at the moment and b) unlike someone like say kleinbl00 or mk, I'm not always good at coming up with super concrete stuff. So my response will be a bit more in abstract comparisons. So about the FDA and all, no system is immune from problems and that's why concepts such as transparency and effective checks and balances are important. You can't just pick one or two examples of an organization not meeting our expectations and say "they're not working right now in this particular instance, so that must mean no regulatory body is worthwhile." That's just not really fair. I can think of two really good, concrete examples where a lack of regulation or ignoring regulations have caused public harm. The housing/financial crisis from the last decade, to the best of my understanding, is due in part to deregulating some of the ways banks could make loans and transfer money. The result was disastrous and I think people can argue that we are still trying to recover. In more recent events, the Flint Michigan water crisis shows what happens when people decide to ignore safety regulations. Many people have been harmed when it could have been avoided. In more abstract concepts though, we can compare regulation heavy countries like America, France, etc. with countries that are less inclined, such as India, Haiti, etc. Just looking at the them on a surface level from their roads to buildings to public safety you can see how regulations can have a big impact. For a good example, if you were to compare The Mississippi River and The Ganges River, you'd see the effect environmental regulations have. These things do male a difference. Laws that are meant to protect tenants such as rental laws and building codes give us healthy and safe places to live and ensure they stay that way. Workplace regulations really do ensure that our places of employment are safer and that we're at least somewhat protected when it comes to being treated fairly. On and on I can go. In short though, the protect us from living in places like this and they protect us from work situations like this and they help us protect the world from turning into this.
Thanks for sharing so many ideas! I feel like I am in the same boat, I have a hard time coming up with concrete evidence, because these subjects are so complex. I don't think we have any hope of drawing a conclusion if I try to address all the different subjects you raised. And I completely agree that it's not fair for me to pick out one or two examples and use them to make a broad argument. By the same token, when you disagree that "the free market will set everything straight in the long run" you are arguing against a farfetched idea that I haven't expressed. You mentioned OSHA as an example of proper regulation that protects us. I don't know much about OSHA and haven't interacted with the agency, so the first question that comes into my head is a very simpleminded one: "Is OSHA effective in its mission to assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women?" Do you agree with me that it could be a worthwhile subject to learn about, as long as we are careful not to make broad conclusions about other organizations? To try and answer the first question, I ask another simpleminded question: "Is there evidence that OSHA has a positive effect on workplace safety?" It seems clear to me that, if OSHA is effective, we should be able to see some results. If we don't see such evidence, we shouldn't conclude that OSHA is worthless, but we should entertain some doubt about whether it is a good example of regulation that protects us. (That's why my claim was that "the effectiveness of OSHA is at least questionable," not that "no regulatory body is worthwhile.") In my view, the clearest evidence of effectiveness would be reduced rates of injury and death in the workplace. Injuries are harder to classify and recording is inconsistent, but the records on fatal incidents are more complete. The chart shows that workplace safety, as measured by the rate of fatalities, is indeed improving. But I don't see any difference in the rate of improvement before or after OSHA was created. I don't trust the source of the chart, but I was able to confirm the numbers on another site, which also mentions other contributing factors, both governmental and otherwise. Do you agree that the effectiveness of OSHA is at least questionable, based on this evidence? If I asked you to predict what the chart would show before you saw it, what might you have said? I think you are right, at a high level, businesses care primarily about profit. And on that same high level, as customers we don't give two shits about the profits of businesses. Yet we give businesses the money that contributes their profits every time we interact with them. Why do we keep giving them money, if we don't care about their profits? Obviously we are obligated to give them money if we want to continue the relationship of exchange by which both sides benefit. And the business has to consider the welfare of the customer as well. How long will you continue to buy from ExxonMobil after you learn that they are putting lead in the unleaded? Will you go back to a restaurant after a case of food poisoning? The business interest in the public good is merely instrumental toward making more profit, but it is to some extent effective. Hurting a customer can lead to expensive lawsuits. Bad service can affect ratings, reducing market share. These are natural incentives that are compatible with human nature. The results aren't perfect, but "customer service" is something every successful business has to consider. If you are so cynical (as you should be) to doubt that a business cares about treating you well when the business stands to gain from every interaction, why are you not equally cynical about the motivation for a public safety inspector, who may gain nothing extra by doing the job properly, and in fact might be able to gain by letting someone cheat?I really feel that the majority of businesses out there don't give two shits about the public good
This right here is why we seldom get along in these discussions. Your methodology is flawed. The argument, the debate, the discovery, the process, the whatever-you-want-to-call-it, does not start with "I have selected THIS evidence for discussion. We shall have this debate on these terms." It starts with "here's the subject of debate. Bring all the evidence you can defend." Arguing the suitability of government oversight based on a four-page flyer printed by a bush-league think-tank wholly funded by the Koch brothers (that is utterly and totally without citation, by the way) is argument by invective, not rhetoric. I chose to dismantle you based on what I know of OSHA because it effectively annihilated any standing you may have had from a factual basis but I could just as easily have dismantled you for this. You're using a poisoned source based on zero empirical data and extrapolating it out to such a broad and useless extreme that the only logical explanation is you're attempting argument by slight-of-hand. And you can fool some people. But if your goal is to actually broaden the understanding of the situation by all sides, your efforts are disingenuous. You're a smart guy. You're much more polite than I am. But your style of rhetoric is maddeningly dishonest. I mean, look at this shit: Because our concrete need for their goods and services outweighs our abstract need for ethics and morality, ASSUMING we know what Nestle does to health in sub-Saharan Africa, for example. Your whole argument hinges on consumers having perfect understanding of the inputs, outputs and externalities of manufacture and marketing and I've met people who didn't know olive oil comes from olives. Compare and contrast - Danon is allowed to pretend they invented a new kind of bacteria, put Jamie Lee Curtis in white and suddenly Activia is the hot new thing and war on breastfeeding? what's that? I mean, this is basic Maszlow's Hierarchy shit and I say that fully aware of how discredited Maszlow is because holy shit, son, "I need eggs" is going to be a lot more compelling than "I abhor animal cruelty" even if the cage-free organic ones aren't four times as expensive. Thus, we rely on our government to make sure that the shit we don't think about isn't produced in an unthinkable way. Blows your scope the fuck up - and that's just the point. You like to argue gerrymandered little corners of the world and hope that nobody will consider the greater consequences. Which is fine when we're discussing narrow things... but we're not. We're discussing "is government necessary" and that's a wall you gotta build brick by brick, not by saying "look at this brick, imagine the wall." I honestly don't know where your libertarian philosophies come from. I do know that your arguments have lots of focus and very little perspective. I've been deposed. I've been trained for deposition. I've taken training in medical liability and I've picked a lot of fights on the Internet. What you're doing - what you're trying to do - is win by default, by discrediting the source. Lawyers used to do that to me as an acoustician - they don't understand the first fucking thing about field impact isolation class but if they can convince the jury I'm an idiot because my report has a dangling participle phrase in it, they don't have to. But your goal isn't to sway the jury despite the evidence. Is it? It's to convince others of the truth of your statements. I mean, Right. If I get food poisoning from the Mexican restaurant down the street, I can (A) sue or (B) report them to the health department. Which solution do you think is out of reach to 99% of consumers? Dude. A health inspector that fails independent verification ceases to be a health inspector. A health inspector that gets caught taking bribes goes to jail. Meanwhile, he gets paid regardless of what he finds - unlike the restaurant, which has a concrete financial incentive to play as close to the edge as possible, the inspector has no motivation in play other than remuneration for doing his job. You know this. You're aware of this. You use rationality in nearly every single one of your arguments, but whenever "the government" is involved, you tack towards "but public servants can be assumed to be shady." I want to see the kinds of arguments you're capable of when you aren't hiding behind doublespeak, smoke and mirrors. Make an honest argument. I'll give you an honest answer. But browbeating other people with obsequious backhanded attacks on the obvious is intellectually lazy and rhetorically dishonest. You're better than this.Do you agree that the effectiveness of OSHA is at least questionable, based on this evidence?
Yet we give businesses the money that contributes their profits every time we interact with them. Why do we keep giving them money, if we don't care about their profits?
The business interest in the public good is merely instrumental toward making more profit, but it is to some extent effective. Hurting a customer can lead to expensive lawsuits. Bad service can affect ratings, reducing market share.
If you are so cynical (as you should be) to doubt that a business cares about treating you well when the business stands to gain from every interaction, why are you not equally cynical about the motivation for a public safety inspector, who may gain nothing extra by doing the job properly, and in fact might be able to gain by letting someone cheat?
It's gonna be a few days before I'm in front of my computer to give you my full thoughts, so bear with me cause mobile is just no good for these kinds of conversations. But to keep the conversation going, I will touch on this . . . Theoretically, it's probably something along the lines of risk vs. rewards or something. Companies have much, much more to gain by being deceitful and are more likely to do it if they think they can get away from it. A public official, ideally speaking, runs the risk of losing much more than he has to gain by doing a poor job, or even worse, accepting a bribe. He doesn't stand to make millions by looking the other way, but if looking the other way lands him in jail and burdened by fines, he'll probably think twice. As for customers supporting bad businesses, you underestimate just how easy it is for businesses to take advantage of people. A lot of the time, the consumers are often ignorant on how they're at risk of being taken advantage of. Everything from payday loan companies and buy here pay here dealers (cars, furniture, electronics) to hack dentists and doctors to bad landlords make life difficult for people who don't know any better. Additionally, if a company is the only option available, say a gas company for example, consumers have no choice but to do business with them. Lastly, sometimes customers might not care about how a company is run, but that doesn't mean the company is worth supporting. There are businesses out their that are absolute hell for their employees that customers still patronize. Regulatory agencies like OSHA and The Department of Labor helps protect those workers.If you are so cynical (as you should be) to doubt that a business cares about treating you well when the business stands to gain from every interaction, why are you not equally cynical about the motivation for a public safety inspector, who may gain nothing extra by doing the job properly, and in fact might be able to gain by letting someone cheat?