It’s a cliche, but true–you really can’t understand how much you worry and care about every little thing about your child until you become a parent. As a new parent, I get sick when I see stories like this one: 59 kids across China have been diagnosed with kidney stones, yielding one fatality. The stones likely resulted from the chemical melamine, a “nitrogen-rich chemical used in the manufacturing of plastics”.
Breaking news also indicates that Chinese government and officials at the formula producing Sanlu group knew about the problem before the olympics but kept the lid on to avoid media controversy.
So the next time any one of these so-called libertarian types in the states starts railing about how getting rid of government is a good thing, kindly point them to the latest Chinese product scandal resulting from weak or corrupt oversight of industry.
The lesson: When you put the incompetent and the criminal in charge of federal disaster management, you get Brownie. When you put them in charge of regulating product safety, you get melamine. When you make them the potential vice-president….
15 responses so far ↓
1 will // Sep 14, 2008 at 2:30 am
This sucks….. couple of years ago it was the big head baby incident and now another one.
2 DJ // Sep 14, 2008 at 5:26 am
I’m sorry, but this is dumb. I don’t know any libertarians who think that reasonable food and drug regulation by the government is illegitimate. And I doubt you do too. You’ve contrusted a goofypoor straw man here.
And, at any rate, I think you’re post actually helps make that straw man libertarian’s case. Libertarians believe (as I understand it) that most government regulation is inefficient and ultimately counter-productive because it inevitably leads to industry-capture (that is, due to the inevitably cozy relationship they develop, the industries that are regulated get undue influence over those who regulate them) and corruption (in the form of outright bribes or the basic sloth and ineptitude we expect to see from public or private bureaucracies).
According the libertarians, a better way to regulate industry is through a robust and predictable tort system. If a company’s products or conduct hurts a consumer, the consumer can go to court and sue the hell out of the company. The risk of substantial legal liability for harming consumers would, in theory, cause firms to take appropriate steps to mitigate risks. Then you have no need for corrupt or inefficient bureaucrats trying to predict and micromanage industry actions at the get-go.
China, of course, is a Bizarro Universe for libertarians: a land of corrupt government regulators who are answerable only to a venal centralized state and the “private” manufacturers the dictatorship sponsors–and where there’s no meaningful recourse by most citizens to courts so as to hold those manufacturers accountable. (I am absolutely not an expert in Chinese product liability law. I know they have laws on the books that, in theory, allow consumers to bring private legal actions to recover damages caused by inferior products. My understanding is that, in practice, this doesn’t happen much.)
Now certainly there are problems with the extreme libertarian vision I’ve described here. (I’m not a libertarian, so I wouldn’t endorse it). But let’s try not to talk smack until we know what we’re talking about, okay? Leave the uninformed jive to the kids at DailyKos and Free Republic.
3 Jackson // Sep 14, 2008 at 9:55 am
Wow, that’s a whole lot of high flying and condescending prose there. Come on, DJ. That last line is really unnecessarily snippy. Even if you made some good points, they kind of got lost in the snotty tone of the response.
Whether it’s the case of corrupt government bureaucrats, or weakening the federal govt. to create a handmaiden to industry, the net effect remains the same although the ideologies are different. I lived in the States for 29 years and saw the effects of gutting necessary federal govt. agencies (slashing healthcare, education, antidrug education, and housing benefits) and/or crony-like appointments leading to ineffective services (i.e. FEMA) first hand. It’s hardly a strawman. It’s a part of the everyday landscape back home. While the latter might not be occuring specifically under the name of “libertarianism”, deregulation has been one of the prevailing ideologies of political thought in the states the last 25 years.
4 DJ // Sep 14, 2008 at 10:11 am
I’ve lived in the States for 36 years. I guess that means I win!
Listen, if I were to come to you and pitch a player based on personal anecdotes and a single data point, you’d laugh at me. And you’d be right to. You’re damn good at sabrmetics, dude. If you applied the same principles to politics, you’d be more convincing.
Oh, and you’re right: That last line was too snippy. It’s not cool to call people uninformed. Sorry. As for “goofypoor”: try using it. It sounds both condescending AND stupid at the same time. There’s no better way to win an argument.
5 Jackson // Sep 14, 2008 at 10:22 am
I am NOT good at SABRmetrics.
6 DJ // Sep 14, 2008 at 11:31 am
Oh, yeah. That’s the other guy.
Actually, with the exception of public housing, all of the things you’ve mentioned are MORE regulated in the States now than ever before.
But I take your general point regarding the deregulation mantra. But here’s what I don’t get: Are you saying that the problem with consumer safety in China is the result of deregulation and what the rest of the world calls economic liberalism? Or is it crony capitalism? Because if you say it’s the former, than you’d obviously be wrong. And if it’s the latter, than your indictment of economic liberalism in the States doesn’t make any sense. (Or, as some would say, it’s goofypoor.)
I’ll give you the last word.
7 Jackson // Sep 14, 2008 at 2:57 pm
What I”m saying is this–and then on to baseball–a lot of the rhetoric of politics in the states revolves around the myth of ‘taking the govt.’ out of peoples lives, and this has been spun into a positive thing. It’s been a highly effective and influential way of convincing people in the states that govt. is inherently bad and intrusive even in cases where strong oversight is needed.
Obviously the systems are not the same. I’m not comparing them so I’m not gonna bite on that question. They’re very different systems.
(As an aside, federal spending on education was cut by 3 billion dollars in 2008. A proposed bill from the Bush administration would cut Medicare and Medicaid by 196 billion over five years.)
The point was not to say the U.S. is like China, obviously it isn’t, but to say that when you don’t have good government with competent officials in positions of responsibility–i.e. the potential future vice president of our country– the results are things like cronyism leading to Katrina and FEMA, officials supporting massive education budget cuts, cuts in necessary services. I think that rhetoric of ’small govt’, the libertarian myth etc goes a long way in convincing people that this is a good thing.
Back to baseball
8 Shinsano // Sep 15, 2008 at 10:30 am
Wow, I missed a doozy while I was gallivanting in Japan. The economist just reviewed a book called “Pet Food Politics,” which is about the 2007 Chinese-manufactured pet food crisis that killed thousands of pets in the U.S.
The author concludes the outbreak was/is similar to America’s own problems with food contamination during an “anything-goes” spurt of economic growth in the late 19th century, which was detailed in Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” Apparently, as a result, 150,000 private food companies were shut down in China. Obviously a few slipped through the cracks with this latest outbreak.
I do want to say…since at one point DJ confused me with Jackson that I agree with the idea that this is more a result of crony capitalism than deregulation. In fact the author makes the argument that America’s current system of food regulation is too fragmented, and is split into too many agencies that don’t connect.
Sounds like a job for a libertarian.
9 Jackson // Sep 15, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Again, to clarify, since I am a genius SABRmetrician named Aaron: I wasn’t attributing the Chinese scandal to deregulation. I was only hinting that it would be a mistake to appoint an unqualified candidate to one of the most powerful offices in Washington and giving an illustration of what can go wrong when there’s an absence of strong and effective government. Obviously the cause of the current problem in China was not the libertarian ideology.
10 Shinsano // Sep 15, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Well, suggesting that voting Palin into office could open the door to something akin to a massive brown-out or babies dying from melamine in their food is bound to piss off someone if not roughly 50% of the people reading it. I’m likely to vote against Palin and I took some slight exception to it….in whatever way emotion is able to penetrate my thick, genius, detailed baseball statistic loving exterior.
11 Jackson // Sep 15, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I think there’s legitimate cause for concern that brought about by her record.
On non-merit based appoinments to cabinet positions: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?hp
on Alaskan citizen’s views towards Bridge to Nowhere project: http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN3125537020080901
on creation science taught in schools: http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/story/8347904p-8243554c.html
On community organizers: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=zbpGTE_bfMs
On peculiar buget-cuts: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/02/palin_slashed_funding_to_help.html
On 27% increase in state operating budget over two year span: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/sarah-palins-increased-op_b_123400.html
Allright, enough on this topic.
I’ll leave it at that.
12 Gus Lonzo // Sep 15, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Some dairy farmers diluted the milk with water and then added a certain chemical so that the weakened formula would make the grade. But the question is, why? To simply make a profit, or rather to pay the taxman? In either case, heads have to roll, but to lay those heads on the doorstep of a libertarian is wrong, Jackson (or wrong-headed if you prefer, as I’m going to assume you would based on your remarks concerning Palin) and especially so if the latter is the case. These things are going to happen whether the market regulates itself, or whether the government does so. Not even Coca Cola is immune this. So what it really comes down to here is how we handle these cases. Do we add more (or even some!) oversight (bureaucrats), or do we leave it up to the market to get rid of these companies through litigation (lawyers)? Well, having lived in Canada for 26 years, I’d have to go with the lawyers. Yes, the market’s highly venal, but the incentive to make a profit by punishing lawbreakers is often motive enough to get it policing itself. What’s the motive of a bureacracy, I ask you? Good will? Tell that to Joseph K, who, without having done anything wrong, was arrested one fine morning…
But I do agree with you on one thing Jackson–that it would indeed be a mistake to appoint an unqualified candidate to one of the most powerful offices in Washington. And wouldn’t that go doubly so for the most powerful one?
13 Jackson // Sep 15, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Love the Kafka reference.
As much as I’m tempted to right now, I’ll try not to resort to the divisive, bitter cynicism and sarcasm that seems to permeate the atmosphere lately, so I’ll say this: Things need fixing in America. Now. Badly. That means environmentally, foreign policy wise, domestically, and spiritually. I fear four more years of the wheels coming off.
Right now I’m going with the candidate who I believe has a genuine interest in righting the ship before its too late, and has an awareness of the real dangers that lie ahead if real changes aren’t made. I’m also going with the candidate who I believe has the interests of all Americans at heart, not just a select few. If such a thing exists.
thanks for the comment, Gus.
I said last time this was it. Now I mean it. Really. Honestly. If anyone wants the last word please go ahead.
14 Gus Lonzo // Sep 16, 2008 at 12:14 am
Points well taken Jackson. I agree with you about things being broken and in need of fixing, especially America’s foreign policy. However… Well, I’ll just say this–change from Bush (though welcomed) isn’t real change. It’s just change from Bush.
Hey, I also agree with you about the cynicism, so how’s that for reaching across the aisle?
15 EW // Sep 16, 2008 at 12:38 am
Gus, the problem is that when you leave it up to the market to fix problems like, say, contaminated food, it virtually requires a few people to get sick or die before any real action is taken. Strong government regulation in matters of life and death (if done properly) is a bit more proactive and probably leads to less public harm.
DJ,
You’re right about the idea of a strong, prolific tort system being a great answer to this stuff, but my previous point applies. Furthermore, advocating a strong tort system in this day and age, when politicians have essentially taught the public not to trust “activist judges,” plaintiffs are relentlessly pressured by big business into settling before their cases can ever make it to court, and the media sensationalize multimillion dollar lawsuits involving spilled coffee, getting a reliable tort system that can totally take the place of strong regulation (as opposed to simply augmenting it) seems like a pipe dream.
I’m all for the two-headed approach. Hopefully those dual enforcement mechanisms can help cover for one another when the current political climate makes one look less palatable. I will say that the “market forces” side of things isn’t looking so hot right now with the U.S. finance industry currently circling the drain. Do I have confidence that market forces can help straighten this out? Yeah, but not without lots of people losing lots of money and facing lots of hardship in the process. So, uh, let the lawsuits commence, I guess.
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