i feel like people think companies will be altruistic and do the right thing regardless of government intervention. like no, companies are driven by capitalism. to make the most out of the day and money they have and maximize profits, especially fortune 500 companies
like without government intervention, strawberry jam would have wood in it. like it's a thing. food companies realized that they could use less of the expensive strawberries as ingredients and just use wood. there are laws you cannot legally call it strawberry jam if you do this. you have to call it a strawberry product or spread. food companies are always trying to get that shit through. they have lobby groups pushing that all the time
it is more expensive to put metal detectors in a food processing plant. companies want to cut costs. it is a legal requirement in a lot of countries to have them. so it forces companies to install them.
also to do routine inspections. that is a government requirement. so are building codes. a lot of codes are the bare minimum. like some companies will exceed the code and have more protections but a lot don't. like if it is not in the code, they don't do it. so that's why having governing bodies that regulate building safety, worker safety, food safety and product safety are crucial. because without them, your employer will not see the need to have exit doors with quick release handles, or do routine fire sprinkler inspections or have road salt for the sidewalks. some of it is basic fucking stuff.
companies when left alone do not regulate themselves. it's been historically untrue. companies want to give you a product that is cheap for them to make and that they can sell at the highest price so they can get the most profit. for everyone who loves capitalism, that's what it is. the free market will not self-regulate. if you don't have anti-monopoly laws and anti-wage theft laws and workers' protections, the open market will not fix that organically.
when government officials talk about removing protections it is not good. like they were put in place for a reason. like drinking water and food regulations were written in blood. same with human rights and freedoms. like people died for the building code to be written. people died for occupational healthy and safety codes to be written. there is a reason food safety codes are there. companies will look at 100 people dying and say it was the cost of doing business. it is the government's job to say that is an unacceptable and for companies to do better
I mean, this is mostly true, regulations are important and necessary. But like, sometimes stupid people run the government, and they pass bad regulations. Right now there’s a regulation in many cities that makes it illegal to give food to homeless people. There’s a federal regulation that exists solely to protect the monopoly of large ship building corporations by banning ships not built in the USA from transporting any food or medicine or other goods between the mainland and Puerto Rico. Zohran Mamdani cut a bunch of regulations in NYC! Because they were bad regulations. Not every regulation is automatically good just because a lot of them are really good.
