[Sca-cooks] Regulations against selling rotten meat

[David Friedman]

>In the case of modern American regulation, there is considerable 
>additional historic evidence that it came about because of the 
>quality the meat being butchered and sold during the 19th Century. 
>The shoddy trade practices, the public debate and the formation of 
>the regulatory bodies is well documented.
>
>Medieval regulations may have a similar origin, but the supporting 
>evidence is limited and not very conclusive.  Trade guilds trying to 
>control their markets and limit competition appears to be better 
>supported.

I can't speak to the particular case of meat, but modern economists 
interested in the subject attribute very similar motives to a lot of 
modern regulation.

And I wouldn't be too quick to accept the conventional account for 
the case of meat. If, after all, the regulation was really driven by 
(say) large meat packers out to  make things hard for their smaller 
competitors--an explanation that has been offered for the regulation 
of the hours of baker that produced the Supreme Court case of Lochner 
v NY--that wouldn't keep them from defending it with less 
self-interested arguments.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com