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Comment by AdrianB1 | Hacker News Reader

This is not a problem of regulation, but a problem of law enforcement; there is no need or regulation "don't sell horse meat as beef", but to remove the US legal system plague of settlements where companies pay money to get rid of investigations and claim "they have no fault".

I know a real case of horse meat sold as beef in UK and they have lots of regulations (including the EU on top of local). You can put all the rules and laws in the book, but don't just relax and hope all will be obeyed. As some SCOTUS decision stated a while ago, some laws and regulations are made so dense and confusing it is almost impossible to comply to the letter - they were talking about something as simple as driving a car on a public road.

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Um, you can't have law enforcement without laws to enforce...

The law that applies/ought to apply is the one against fraud in the beef example.

One must first outline what “beef” is before you can assign fraud. Outlining what makes something “beef” is textbook regulation.

In the common law system it would be up to a judge to make an estimation if such a question should happen. This is how common law operated for a long time. This allows judgment on a case by case bases where the judge can react to changing circumstances.

It has many advantages compared to a system where the government to literally pre-define every single thing in the economy and create specific regulation and test procedures for it, even if in most cases these things are not needed.

We tried that system and it evolved into what we have today because there were obvious holes. The FDA didn’t create itself. Muckraking journalists (like Upton Sinclair) shines a light on the conditions which led Theodore Roosevelt to create the FDA.

Acting like the world of judicial regulation (which takes years and lots of money to see through) was somehow better seems like rose-colored glasses. Whether the FDA’s scope should be adjusted is a different discussion.

Making public policy based on a popular novel that didn't even claim to be totally accurate.

Food quality was improving before FDA was established and continued rising after as well. Most quality improvement is driven by consumer demand that was the case before and after FDA.

Nobody said the policy was based on a book not is anyone advocating for it, that’s an obvious straw man.

Your mention of “quality improvement” is another slight of hand as that’s not really the FDA’s purpose nor do you support it with sources. Show some data for food (and drug) safety preceding and following the FDA and we can discuss.

By the time the fraud has been discovered and the company has been successfully sued, the owners will have long moved on, leaving behind nothing but a shell with ownership registered in the Cayman Islands. (Lax regulation of companies is also part of deregulation).

In any case there are other areas of regulation, such as environmental protection. What will happen when those are relaxed?

I have the feeling that the survey discussed in the original article is overgeneralizing from narrow questions of regulation eg. surge pricing, labor markets, etc., and that the so-called liberaltarians probably would be far less skeptical of financial, environmental, & safety regulations, & would generally like to see more vigorous enforcement even when they don't want want more regulations.

Wouldn't a law against using flammable building materials always be considered "regulation"?

I never said there should be no regulations at all, just that some regulations are not needed or excessive. For example, needing a training course, pass exams and have a professional license to sell flowers is stupid, while doing the same to drive a car is totally fine.

Apologies, the context did not make that clear.

> some regulations are not needed or excessive

I think everyone belives this.

The challenge has always been finding the most useful laws, as well as preventing special interests and rent seeking.

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