Pun Salad

I've seen the author, Baylen Linnekin, both at the Reason website and magazine, writing a lot of sense about American food policies. So I requested this book from the Interlibrary Loan service of the University Near Here, and it showed up all the way from the University of Wyoming. Thanks as always to everyone involved.

There is a general long-running libertarian critique of government regulation: it is born out of the early-1900's Progressive/Fascist mindset that the State Knows Best, and that via mandates, rules, taxes on some, subsidies for others, the anarchy of the free marketplace could be tamed into a smooth-running machine free of "wasteful" competition.

What actually happens, time and again: powerful entrenched special interests (often, but not always, corporate) dominate the rule-making and political processes, seeking rents. Subsidies flow to the politically powerful. Upstart competitors find that they're fighting on an unlevel playing field. The few protected companies grow fat, lazy, and un-innovative.

And government rule-makers, needless to say, gotta make rules. They operate on LaPetomaine's Phony Job Protection Provision:

Linnekin does a great job, anecdote by anecdote, of demonstrating how this plays out in getting food into the American mouth. Current rules damage both farmers and consumers.

For example, in the name of "food safety", many regulations mandate processes, not results. (E.g., demanding that small vendors refrigerate their products, not simply use ice.) On the margin, the compliance costs are often too great for the "little guys", driving them out of business.

Antiquated labelling laws also stifle innovation. Example: a couple in New York developed a high-end nut milk they called "OMilk". State regulators stepped in (after years) and demanded that the couple now comply with the state rules regarding "melloream", set up decades earlier to "protect dairy producers from lower cost imitators".

And on. And on. Most importantly for current debates, Linnekin shows how a ton of regulations actually encourage (and in some cases, demand) massive amounts of food waste. As pointed out on the Drawdown List of Solutions to greenhouse gas emissions, number three in terms of efficacy is "Reduce Food Waste". There's little reason to not yank the rules that get in the way of that goal.

Linnekin's approach is occasionally outright libertarian: as long as willing producers and willing consumers can agree on a price, free of fraud or misrepresentation, let the market do its work. Regulators go home. But it's clear that he wants to appeal to a broader audience that us hardcore types. One side effect is right up there in the subtitle: he leans heavily on the foodie buzzword "sustainable". That got mildly irritating after the first nine dozen repetitions. To his credit, he's clear that his definition of "sustainable" is more economic than sentimental: efficient processes, discovered through market processes.

Another irritation, also seen in the book's subtitle: Linnekin notes strongly that he's not against all rules, but they should be "smart". This is eye-rolling for me. Who's against "smart"?