Who will ensure food safety in a libertarian society ?

Alright, i figured it is difficult to ensure food is safe without governement.

So let's say we are in a libertarian society. Some comapnies produce food, indeed, but they are rational agents and they wants to maximise profits, so they start lowering quality/ using dangerous chemicals or whatever process that's cost-effective but unhealty for the consumer.

What warranty the consumer will have to buy sane/quality food ?

I have figured some companies could just pay some laboratories to make tests on their products to ensure quality&safety, but then the companies which analyse the food will in order need food companies to sustain, so there is a conflict of interrest, and labortories will be tempted to say the food is safe not to lose their customers. Also their lies the corruption problem.

Then you can object that some non-profit organisation will perform tests voluntarily on food, but that suppose them to be vertuous and selfless, and again their big influence on the market will make then in a position where they will have a lot of pressure, and the peoples volunteering will need to eat so they need money, so they can be bought to hide dirty test results.

So, how do you solve this ?

This works for food quality and safety but also for other goods, such as electronics, chemicals, cosmetics and so on.

the free market

>the free market

>MUH FREE MARKET FIXES EVERYTHING

Why do you automatically assume that bureaucrats are more virtuous and less corruptible than corporations, when the latter can at least be held accountable by the consumer?

They are officials, paid by the governement, they do not have to worry how they'll eat the next mounth, their salaries are backed up by the taxpayers. Of course greed is everywhere and they may be a lot of dirty cases, but they seems less corruptibles all in all.

Also with hierarchy in bureacrats, the amount of people to corrupt to have fake inspection is higher, and all of them may not want to be bought.

>They are officials, paid by the governement,

And magically averse to supplementing their income through graft... how?

>they do not have to worry how they'll eat the next mounth

But I thought big bad faceless corporations were also staffed by fabulously wealthy people?

>Also with hierarchy in bureacrats, the amount of people to corrupt to have fake inspection is higher,

There are routine scandals in food inspection departments. It even happens here in Canada.

>And magically averse to supplementing their income through graft... how?


It doesn't, i said gred is everywhere, my point is they don't need it to sustain.

>But I thought big bad faceless corporations were also staffed by fabulously wealthy people?

implying wealthy people will graduate in chemestry and work for free to make tests results, volunteerly, instead of just laying in a sunbed and enjoy life since they can do it.

As a worker in the food industry I can assure you that even in our fanciful "mixed" economic system there is absolutely NO such thing as proactive food safety.

Inspection only occurs after a recall is issued, (on a random portion of the product, testing all food would be an absurd undertaking) which only occurs after there is already an outbreak of food born illness.

And of course this entirely depends upon the due diligence of all stops along the way in the food distribution process, which can have many steps.

But product can and is routinely "orphaned" from it's manufacturing information rendering it unaccountable in a recall.

Government inspection is extremely rare and if a facility keeps a tight chain of command over information and prevents whistleblowers it's quite likely they will never see a government inspection.

Other than that it is all self policing. Companies participate in third party audit programs where they "surprise" audit each other (with a weeks advance notice) and judge each other on such food safety relevant criteria as how nice the paint looks, and whether or not pallet wrap has been recycled.

So the libertarians would change basically nothing. Your food might get cheaper because they wouldn't feel compelled to perform their joke audits.

I would, I would start a mobile application that allowed people to scan the bar codes on foods. This application would be linked to a private testing facility. If you as a consumer want the app it's free, if you as a food producer want your food on the app it will cost you and I will need access to your production facilities etc to make sure your product is safe.

Right now:
>there are laws
>private institutes and public institutions check whether the laws are upheld
>the laws are made by lobbyists
>the local public institutions protect wrongdoers if they'd lose out on votes/taxes otherwise

Libertarian society:
>there are laws
>private institutes check whether these are upheld
>if your product sucks, you get sued and/or lose revenue

Literally all of the bad scenarious you are imagining are already taking place. And the leafbro is correct, too.

>can at least be held accountable by the consumer

the free market is efficient and fair IN AVERAGE and in the LONG TERM only

that means there will always be a share of people getting fucked in the ass by shady newcomers and new products because information asymmetry is a reality, enough people have to actually test the products and companies before the market can judge and put a value on it

of course any serious competitor would not have an incentive to fuck the consumer beyond what's acceptable (because of the certainty of long term devaluation), offering a balanced value proposition, but hello hello, the real world calls: there are many factors that might push a company towards being more or less fair to the consumer, the market structure, market coverability, the means of consumer communication

of course you could go completely amoral and defend the position that it's only natural a european unregulated market would see a fair and competitive system whereas a latin american unregulated market would see a shitfest, after all the market only adapts to the geographical and socioeconomic+cultural differences, it's not the market's fault if latin america is a shitty, sparsely populated, undeveloped shithole inhabited by savages, it'll serve them the right dose

or you could be reasonable and realize the existence of governemnt, not even a bloated government just a minimum government with capacity for surveillance and punishment, would be enough to implement a humane minimum standard for companies just by applying economic punishments, as long as it acts rooted in economic analysis to improve the overall well-being levels of society, which I'll admit sadly it's rather the exception than the rule these days

>Be Nestle
>Buy food safety org with subsidiary
>Call me CEO friends that own media and tell them not to mention it
>Put anything I want in food
>If people find out, just change brand names of tiny subsidiaries, or buy entire grocery chains to control supply

Yeah libertarianism would have worked in 1905, when the local pasta factory would be obviously making everyone sick, but b/c of globalization and monopoly capitalism libertarianism is irrelevant.


ps. you use coercion to keep a child out of traffic, why wouldnt you use the threat of coercion to keep companies from poisoning you?

As I explained. There's nothing keeping them from poisoning you now. The first poisoning is free.

And of course food born illness is never in properly cooked/processed food. It is almost always from mishandled produce and the chain of accountability usually skips the "dindu" distributors and bites the farmers in the ass, and they have no ass left to sue because the agricultural monopolies have taken over the grain business and left them with nothing but lettuce and a razor thin profit margin.

>make good and safe products
>others don't
>I make massive profits
>they go bankrupt at first death/real sickness

my point is it isn't good now, but companies will take bigger risks the smaller the government and controls are.

>company makes product
>people are unwary of new food company, want to make sure it's safe
>company pays certification company to test their product
>if the certification company is last and doesn't detect the disgusting bacteria all over their food product, and people get sick, the two companies go under because they both didn't do their job
>people don't get sick because the companies are willing to pay for a good certification/make sure their food doesn't kill anyone because of it does, nothing protects them from people stopping the purchase of their products

I don't disagree. But people are wrong to think that the government has their back now.

The anti-libertarian crowd seems to think there's some art school major taking a magical non existent "food badness" tester to every piece of food coming off an assembly line and that's just not true.

Food safety is almost entirely on the consumer right now. Cook shit properly. Wash your produce (Even if it says it's already washed on the bag) and if it smells wrong throw it out. It's simple.

>last
Lazy*, fuckin autocorrect

no1, the first authoritarian revolution will end this bullshit

mobilefag detected.

Fuck, now everyone knows I'm browsing Sup Forums on the shitter

>Alright, i figured it is difficult to ensure food is safe without governement.
Sure but it's even more difficult with government interference.

>What warranty the consumer will have to buy sane/quality food ?

Right now you can look for certification by whichever authorities you trust - SQFI or kashrut or halal marks are already common.

Without a monopolist controlling the food certification process these already existing authorities would simply experience increased demand for their services.

>I have figured some companies could just pay some laboratories to make tests on their products to ensure quality&safety, but then the companies which analyse the food will in order need food companies to sustain, so there is a conflict of interrest, and labortories will be tempted to say the food is safe not to lose their customers. Also their lies the corruption problem.

Consumers Union has solved that problem pretty neatly, you should look at how they do it.

yes we certainly need more government involved with food safety. I've seen a lot of libertarians use the strange argument that since we don't have enough government food regulations now, we shouldn't have any.

that is long term, in the short term a CEO could raise profits of a company, take their $50mil bonus and retire, letting the brand go bankrupt after a few years, they would not care.


libertarians just aren't cynical enough.

Consumer reports.

Clearly you are not thinking far enough. In shitholes like China there is an entire industry of counterfeit food products. Fake eggs synthesized with harmful chemicals that look exactly the same, injecting meat with water and other products so it weighs more, and so on. The government is not the perfect solution but having someone to crack a big stick on these businesses, applying heavy fines and jail time, does much much more to inhibit this behavior than the market ever could.

People would have to be more careful where they buy their food. There would probably be private food safety companies that run like the BBB and give ratings to suppliers and farms based on their safety.

This is why I avoid processed food unless it has clear country-of-origin labeling.

Fresh food is currently not economically feasible to ship overseas. So that is all local.

Another problem is that corporatism makes it so that other than financially there is no accountability.

he is right

Investigative reporting and free markets take care of it.

shit thread

In Europe it's the corporations that need to prove that their food is safe for the consumers not the other way around. The European food regulations are actually one of the best things about EU.

The problem is mostly with the lack of transparency, in this modern day and age all plans and decisions made by the government should be widely available for the people, law enforcement and the press. The government should be under surveillance of the people not the other way around.

>citing China, communist country
In China the fake business only works since it is illegal and those who get screwed can't say anything because they broke the law.

>health and safety standards
That's commie shit.

all of this

we will have jetpacks to fly to a privately funded hospital of your choice.

It's obvious: independed food-certifying agencies. Consumers then would want to buy only food certified by respectable agencies. Corruption is overcame by competition between agencies.

Grow it myself. I have a seed catalog and my family has a remote hunting cabin.

Who would want to buy a failed business for 50 million? The man would be responsible for his actions and have to use that money to pay back the people he got sick/liability for those killed

>open local newspaper
>article on how firms can't find qualified workforce because they all left for other countries
>mentions how there are a lot of unemployed still
>2000 words on bawing their eyes on how they've been struggling to find people for over 11 years now and how people quit the job 2-3 months in constantly
>briefly mention how they're pretty much paying the absolute minimum while working you 12+ hours a day

WHY ISN'T THE FREE MARKET FIXING IT?

It's good you have options and canadian farmers aren't unscrupulous scumbags. It's not hard to think of places where this doesn't apply, though. Like I said in some places are ready for less regulation, others aren't.

I don't know why it's so hard to grasp for the libertarians of this board. If Sup Forums understands that the white race is moral and just and compassionate with their fellows, but niggers, chinks, jews, mudslimes and gypsies are conniving, backstabbing, greedy fuckers, why is it so hard to envision that the free market would operate well on a white society but other subhumans would do everything in their power to bypass, manipulate and distort it?

In a white society, you see bad practices from a company, consumers denounce it, the market devalues the company, and everything falls in place. In China, instead of making production more efficient, they instead put all their effort into counterfeiting, to the point it's almost impossible to the regular consumer to identiy a modified product, it already starts backwards; even if someone tries to speak against it, mafia would silence those voices; even if people stop buying from them, they might take out competition, violently even, to the point there's no alternative; even if people choose to starve, they'll just go on to the next town, because they have no scrupulous.

I don't think you guys have ever dealt with subhumans on a daily basis. I live in Brazil. Brazilians go out of their way to scam other people, scam the government. Even if it means more effort, they prefer this way, it's cultural. It breaks any logic. They take every opportunity, from the lowest to the highest class.

A government is the best we can hope for. To at least hold these people criminally accountable. Like I said, not the ideal solution, but the only one they have. I don't defend big government though, because that only amplifies distortion. Scum people = scum businesses = scum government.

Incorporation shields the executives of a company from criminal accountability. There's no criminal accountability for anything caused by corporate greed.

Incorporation is a big government concept and not compatible with the Lessaiz Faire doctrine.

I used to be a libertarian (but have since done a 180 on that) but people make a lot of unfair judgements about libertarian philosophies by overlooking that simple fact.... A lot of the shit that corporations get away with is the direct result of the protections the rich have gained through money in politics.

There's also a lot of libertarians who don't understand that either. But I'm fairly well studied in objectivist/Lessaiz Faire philosophy. It's not unworkable, but it could only work if everybody had to start back at 0, and if intellectual property laws were heavily reformed.

The problem is you are cucked by the EU. Even if supply and demand tries to work its magic in the labor market, wages in small EU countries are severely restricted by international trade.

Bottom line is: companies produce to sell, if you don't have any natural advantage (e.g. easily accessible natural resources) and you are put in a highly competitive environment like the EU, your companies will operate at a minimum profit, able to pay only minimum wages.

If you weren't bound by the EU and lived in complete isolation without trade or economic migration, there would be more companies and industries (as you would stop importing stuff) and then unemployment/wages would balance it out, depending on overall demand, which depends on demographic factors too. You'd actually have to crunch the math to determine if you'd be better off or not, but there's only one certainty: your products would be shittier.

The entire idea behind international trade is: by specializing in certain industries, companies are able to produce better / cheaper products. That is undeniable. Who produces what is determined by who has the necessary infrastructure and resources, so it's basically just luck. In the 18th century Portugal went full international trade and got stuck exporting wine while importing clothes from England. Wine demand didn't increase, cloth did. Portugal went from worlwide influence to the country it is now because of this. You are basically in the same position, except with much more complexity obviously.

Your best bet honestly is to focus on the coast of Dalmatia. The travel industry is much more influenced by marketing, it's not as restricted by cold hard numbers as manufacturing is. There's good money to be made there.