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Avoiding GM Foods? Monsanto Says You're Overly Fussy
blackbeak writes "The BBC today characterized those who avoid GM foods as overly fussy, the very same day that the Wall Street Journal announced that picky eating may be recognized in the 2013 DSM as a psychiatric disorder. The DSM item refers to something completely different, though I'm sure many will confuse the two. Of course, this was not done without subterfuge; the BBC's author, Professor Jonathan Jones, in no way indicates his close ties to Monsanto. Point by point Jones regurgitates the same pro-GM arguments debunked numerous times all over the net for years, while serving up some stale half facts too."
Professor Jonathan Jones is senior scientist for The Sainsbury Laboratory, based at the John Innes Centre, a research centre in plant and microbial science
Requiring labeling of GM foods is specifically not free market. Free markets, of course, mean unregulated markets and requiring labeling is a regulation -- a very good regulation that, as you point out, would benefit consumers.
Free markets are bad for consumers because they are opaque, non-competitive, and dysfunctional. Only by using regulation can we achieve a transparent, competitive, functional market.
So my point is that we all need to stop saying "free market" when what we really mean is exactly the opposite: "market". I make this point because the people who make policy listen to people like you who request "free markets", and actually deliver on what that actually means, by eliminating regulations that we all want. We all need to be very careful to reject the free market in favor of carefully, minimally regulated non-free markets.
Please don't read this as an attack. You make an important point with which I do not agree. I only want to correct a diction mistake which is common and also dangerous. Remember: markets are good, free markets are bad.
If your point is that you are upset that the meaning of free market has changed into something you don't like, then I agree.
But we're stuck with the definition. It means what it means. I like free speech and free software and free beer and free love, so I'm etymologically inclined to like free markets -- but knowing what it really means, I must say that free markets are bad. Please excuse me for annoyingly repeating my point, I truly think it's sorely understated overall.
Yes. "Free market" is a misleading phrase. It sounds so good -- who would oppose a free anything? But it's a marketing term which means something other than what people first imagine. I belabor the point to an annoying degree because I think it's important. I'm glad you weren't put off. Be well.