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@chartier my "favourite" version of this is the fishing industry. Left to their own devices they will literally fish themselves out of business. Fisheries regulations are there to ensure that fisheries continue to exist.

@chartier Moreover, it should be expensive. Regulations exist to make it more expensive to do the ethically wrong things than the right things.

Non-compliance should be a terrifying, life-ruining event for a business.

@chartier chalk is actually safe to eat and a good vegan source of calcium. Tums antacids are basically chalk

@chartier as does regulated capitalism, in the long run, by disturbing the climate

@chartier Fast Forward to 2026 - Now, look and see

@chartier BWAHAHAHAHA...Oh, dear sweet naive child. In some economic systems just COMPLAINING that they were being fed spoiled food measurably could kill them faster than the tainted goods themselves. You think it's capitalism forcing one quarter of north korea to starve to death? Capitalism that created the Holodomor?
Become a better student of history. Regulations in many nations were ENTIRELY because it's ruling class enjoyed them was standard faire across the world until the late 1800's.

@chartier given that these reforms were due to the muckraking journalism era, it's entirely possible that some of them weren't told about this

@chartier

This is a lie, right?
Tell me this is a lie, goddammit.

@chartier

A SHAMEFUL SHAM. "Quakers" Used in the Coffee We Buy. THAT IS THEIR TRADE NAME. Lady Tells What She Knows About the Frauds. Even the Whole - Berry Browned Coffee Is Full of the Vilest Adulterants.

"If the what-is-it coffee adulterant is the same stuff that they in the house I have been working for I can tell you what it is." Mrs. Minnie Le Long smiled as she said these words to THE CALL reporter.

"Yes; tell us, please,' said THE CALL man. "Well, it is old bread, musty barley and dough made from the cheapest kind of flour, all browned to the color of coffee and then ground up and mixed with the coffee." "Are you quite sure about that?" "Sure?" Mrs. Long laughed. "Of course I am sure."

@chartier

Bread in the US and UK in the 18th and 19th centuries was often adulterated with plaster, alum, bone meal, chalk, clay, or sawdust.

Unadulterated capitalism = adulterated bread (& etc).

https://archive.org/details/b21531006

@chartier @DoomsdaysCW Oh, let me tell you an anecdote.

The European Union has been very slow in coordinating and unifying its consumer protections.

Spain joined the EEC in 1986.

But back in 1984 we had one of the strictest consumer protection laws; it took years for the EU to "reach us" in stuff like informative labels. We also had quirks like a prohibition of bulk buying (as in, unpackaged) to final consumers.

And it was because back in 1981, 330 people died and thousands got seriously ill from industrial-use oil sold as food-grade. To this day, people won't buy canola oil because the name sounds as poison. The case was a form of collective trauma.

@chartier or were never told about it to begin with?

@chartier Always funny seeing Americans say that stuff.

Chlorine chicken, mystery beef, no testing regime, constant outbreaks of salmonella... yep, regulations are working great there