[Sca-cooks] Regulations against selling rotten meat

[Terry Decker]

> >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

On the otherhand, the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) was the grandest product 
regulation I've ever heard of and it was rammed through by a bunch of 
reformers for "the good of the people" without support from the brewers and 
distillers or even much popular support.  As law, it was a profit to anyone 
willing to violate it, but the evidence suggests that was consequence rather 
than cause.  With that experience, we can't rule out the conventional 
history of product regulation.

For the specific case within the limits of my knowledge of the facts, I tend 
to take the view that regulation and reform in the meat industry during the 
19th Century was originally as portrayed in the conventional accounts.  I 
also take the view that reform driven change climaxed during Teddy 
Roosevelts second administration and business co-option of the regulatory 
process was in progress.

Bear