Without government intervention, food producers would refuse to tell you the ingredients and contents of the food. We need the government to force producers to print a food pyramid, and a percentage breakdown of vitamins. duh, Why do you hate your own well being?
Erm, I presume this is a joke?
If people actually cared there would be quite the profit opportunity for a producer to publish ingredients on their products.
We should always consider the idea of private regulation. There would be lots of agencies certifying products, and imposing their own standards. The market process puts the government regulation in shame.
Advocatus diaboli?
The problem is whenever you talk about this idea to statists… or… other people they think you’re not arguing for the free market so you’re automatically agreeing with them that more government regulation is needed. Perhaps some regulation is needed… but it would have to be done by the individuals and shareholders on the markets and watchdog agencies as opposed to the government itself.
Yeah, regulation is not bad per se. What is bad is a monopoly on regulation. We shoot ourselves in the foot by using the term “free market,” as it implies a distinction between the market for non-coercive services and those that may involve coercion (such as security or even regulatory* services).
*Yes I realize that regulations on the free market need not be coercive, but just to keep all bases covered I think we should allow for the possibility in theory