> What is easier to game? one customer (the regulator) or millions of competing customers?
I'm not sure what you're asking here. It's quite clear to me that one regulatory body, which can hire inspectors and food-testers and use economies of scale to regulate an entire industry, is much less easy to fool than individuals purchasing milk, who cannot cost-effectively hire inspectors and food-testers and thus cannot evaluate the quality of the product AT ALL.
and another standard will soon arise because the same people who wanted to pay a premium for higher quality food are complaining that now that organic has been regulated the quality has decreased drastically. producers are gaming the rules.
Comments
And until the government came and regulated the word, anyone could describe anything, no matter how produced, as "organic".
And now that there is in fact a government regulation, one cannot.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nop
> What is easier to game? one customer (the regulator) or millions of competing customers?
I'm not sure what you're asking here. It's quite clear to me that one regulatory body, which can hire inspectors and food-testers and use economies of scale to regulate an entire industry, is much less easy to fool than individuals purchasing milk, who cannot cost-effectively hire inspectors and food-testers and thus cannot evaluate the quality of the product AT ALL.
and another standard will soon arise because the same people who wanted to pay a premium for higher quality food are complaining that now that organic has been regulated the quality has decreased drastically. producers are gaming the rules.