Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!yale-com!leichter From: leichter@yale-com.UUCP (Jerry Leichter) Newsgroups: net.auto,net.flame Subject: Re: seatbelts make sense Message-ID: <1707@yale-com.UUCP> Date: Sun, 3-Jul-83 18:40:25 EDT Article-I.D.: yale-com.1707 Posted: Sun Jul 3 18:40:25 1983 Date-Received: Mon, 4-Jul-83 07:25:08 EDT References: utcsstat.739 Lines: 68 Re: Dangerous fireproof" pyjamas. Laura's example is good, if sad; but you don't need to got to Honduras to find an example; pretty much the same thing happened here. When the FTC passed a requirement that all children's pyjamas had to be fireproof, the industry pretty much unanimously came to the conclusion that the best way to do this was to treat the fabric with a substance called Tris. It turns out that Tris is a carcinogen. After the fact, with 20-20 hindsight, all the consumerists attacked the industry for using Tris "just because it was the cheapest substance available." There is all sorts of debate on this now, and it's still up in the air - since there are, of course, law suits involved - but from what I've seen, there was little research available on the safety of Tris when the decision to use it was made. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to have been much research available on any of the (more expensive) substitutes either. The manufactures are, of course, liable under the usual strict liability theories for "un- reasonably dangerous" consumer goods - a theory widely recognized as having little to do with justice as such, but rather a form of compulsary insurance. (For those unfamiliar with it: Under strict liability theory, a manufacturer is liable if her sells a dangerous item even if he can show that he took all reasonable precautions. The theory arose around the turn of the century as the result of cases involving things like bits of sharp metal found in cans of peas. As a practical matter, you can NEVER show any particular case of negligence in something like this; the manufacturer will show how carefully everything is checked, etc. For a long time, consumers lost cases like this. Eventually, the law changed; it was decided that metal in a can of peas was in and of itself a sufficient reason to hold the manufacturer liable. The resulting law then says: No matter how careful you are, we realize that accidents will happen; but you have to pay for them as the "deep pocket" in the case. I.e.: You have to get (or provide your own) insurance to cover the oddball, one-in-a-million case when something goes wrong. Of course, all the 999,999 purchasers of non-defective cans of peas pay a little extra to cover this cost; nothing comes free.) (My own feeling about this, BTW, is that it's a very reasonable approach, as long as it is kept within bounds. Occasionally, it gets out of hand - like the celebrated case of the New York idiot who dried her poodle off in a microwave oven, killing it. She sued and won. (Yes, it really did happen; a lawyer friend looked it up one day. Many cases like this are won in jury trials but then overturned on appeal. In this case, there was apparently a lot of bad publicity in the air about microwave ovens at the time, so the company decided it was better to just eat the loss and avoid the press coverage that would certainly have attended the appeal. Isn't justice wonderful?)) Anyway...to return a bit closer to the original topic: A fundamental dif- ference between the marketplace and the world of politics is that the mar- ketplace supports many parallel solutions to the same problem, allowing the purchaser to choose. (That's why monopolies are a bad thing; they don't give you that choice.) Politics, on the other hand, is inherently a matter of making choices between alternatives. It works best when a single choice can be made that makes everyone at least reasonably satisfied. Political "parallel solutions" are extremely rare, probably rightly so - if there is no concensus within the polity on the direction to take, why is the polity as an entity taking any direction at all? Politics relies heavily on com- promises - i.e., merging different solutions into one that leaves no one TOO unhappy. So...whenever you propose that "the government" get involved in some choice, remember that a side-effect will be that the choice made will soon be the ONLY one available - so you had better be prepared to live with it. Some- times this is a good way to go, sometimes it's not - but each situation has to be examined closely on its merits. A great French phrase that I can never remember in the original comes to mind: It is necessary to also want the consequences of what one wants. (The French has a great ring to it; does anyone know it, or the source?) -- Jerry decvax!yale-comix!leichter leichter@yale