The ban was enacted for quality control purposes a very long time ago when raw milk WASN'T a niche production. Since Public Health falls under the purview of the government, makes sense why the government got involved (externalities of a sick populace?)
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But Inna, I thought you LIKED governments controlling stuff? Me confused.
I see a need for state intervention where a counter-power is required to limit abuses of power or dangerous actions by individuals or organized groups. But I'm well aware that with these interventions comes the risk of making things worse.
Raw milk can be dangerous, so I can understand why its sale is not allowed in "industrial quantities" by supermarkets, as the current pasteurized milk is sold. The current dairy industry is such that its product would cause too much harm. But the solution to the dangers of raw milk has done no more than cement a system that, frankly doesn't seem that good. The dairy industry is effectively protected from competition by
different production methods -the government ended up enforcing an
industry monopoly, by which I mean the monopoly of a single production system: from the "industrial farm" to pasteurization in medium and large-side units, to supermarkets.
The initial intention was to protect consumers. The final product was to force the organization of production and distribution of a commodity in one and only one way.
And milk is just one example, much of this applies to other foodstuffs. We can't say there are no alternatives, because there are: with milk, if the problem starts with the cow's health (thanks for the kink, ori), why not consider addressing the problem there?
And I've watched the "unforeseen" consequences of "well-intended" regulation in other areas too: carbon-trading and carbon-quotas, in my country, and many others, have been distributed in a way that effectively protects existing companies from competition (they got theirs free, potential competition would have to pay). Yet "carbon trading" was hailed as a "free market approach to the global warming problem".
I guess my point is actually that most regulations will favor certain interests against others, and often it's not clear why this happens, and how those interests participate in creating them. The larger the government, the harder it becomes for the "public" or indeed any "small interests" to accompany and weight in on this process. (that's one of my gripes with the EU, by the way...)
And once regulations are in place they are not questioned, because there's years of social conditioning teaching the public that those regulations were created for their own good. Conditions change, as you said above, but once industries get organized around certain regulations, there will be resistance to change, or even allow the subject to be discussed. Is it not true that we, consumers, have very little power to actually bring about any change to
existing regulations?
No I don't have any solution to propose, apart from encouraging people to be aware this problem exits, and question whether any regulation or law is justified. I do believe smaller governments (local governments) cause less of these problems. But large governments were made necessary because of greater economic integration, the larger scale of markets and world trade. (larger companies <-> larger governments)
I fear we're individually giving up too much power (to increasingly larger state-like entities) for the sake of efficiency or security, without considering all the consequences of this. Cheaper food, at the cost of quality, makes a nice example.
