JimboJ
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2009
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Technology solves many of those problems, with ever-cheaper devices for analyzing nutritional / chemical contents, and ever-greater use of the Internet, including from portable devices. You don't need to "investigate" anything, just hold a product next to your smartphone and look at the summary screen: this many stars for quality, safety, expert advice, consumer satisfaction, ethical "karma" of companies involved, any warning flags, etc - it only takes 5 seconds!
And many other "negative externalities" like pollution are issues that are dealt with through property rights, like between the owner of a factory and any adjacent property owners that can detect their air / water / soil quality being affected, in which case the factory owes them restitution (unless they have a prior agreement, like a factory might agree to a specific cap and sponsor a local park to compensate for it).
What do you mean by "even"? CPSC is a government monopoly, and is thus naturally inferior to a competing mesh of consumer safety organizations that actually have to compete for public donations, subscriptions, or service fees (most likely paid by manufacturers looking for a reputable way to prove their product's quality) on the basis of their reputation.
When the CPSC monopoly screws up (i.e. corruption, incompetence, forcefully delaying / keeping a useful product out of the marketplace, raising product prices too much, etc) - what're you gonna do, move to a different country? Even if you do, they'll still be getting your tax dollars for many years to come!
On the issue of medical regulation, I specifically recommend a book by Mary Ruwart called Healing Our World (older edition free online). FDA kills!
So you want to live in a society, where ever consumer has to first research every product they buy. They cannot simply go to the grocery store and try a new brand of milk and is on sale because they cannot trust that brand of milk.
You mean every citizen should have to measure their own air quality, soil quality, etc.... This seems like a terribly inefficient means of environmental regulation as well as unequal. Already individuals spend years in court trying to prove causal relations between pollution and health. Moreover, what about the citizens who don't have the resources to carry out such extensive scientific measures. Manufacturers do pay for organizations to evaluate the effects of their products consumer safety and market externalities. These organizations have a notorious reputation for being terribly biased and set-up with the sole purpose of hoodwinking the public.
Finally, why disband the CSPC? Even with its regulation we have the most diverse and largest market of products in the world and in history. Disbanding it would have no tangible affect on price. Yet the CSPC allows this market while keeping products relatively safe and enabling trade on an unprecedented level. Sure it tries to take away your freedom of buying extremely flammable PJs but then again I don't know anyone who would want to enjoy this freedom.