Re:Roundup’s Risks Could Go Well Beyond Cancer
by beat on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @11:01AM
(#20105104)
Billions of dollars for giant corporations isn't a compelling reason?
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Re:Roundup’s Risks Could Go Well Beyond Cancer
by _nalply on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @01:01PM
(#20106505)
I find this a cynical or maybe a sardonic statement.
Judgment aside, there's a cost for the society which is not borne by owners of these giant corporations. These owners have a selfish interest to propagate dubious means. With "selfish" I mean the good natured selfishness in the sense of Smith's capitalism. So we as a society should strive to charge the owners with these costs, so that products like RoundUp get uneconomical to produce and sell.
Keyword: external costs
Re:Roundup’s Risks Could Go Well Beyond Cancer
by beat on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @01:21PM
(#20106776)
It is, indeed, a cynical statement. But it gets to the very reason why we aren't looking closely enough at the potential social costs.
As an aside, I think the conventional wisdom reading of Adam Smith, that somehow selfishness begets virtue, was not the author's intent, and is mostly just a self-serving rationalization. At the very least, it ignores the ways that selfish action can turn toxic - deception, corruption, theft, and of course externalized costs.