Will Hutton continues his campaign to make all us proles do what he damn well tells us to do. We should only trade with each other in goods and services which Willy agrees we should be allowed to trade. Or have, or consume – the important point being that Will should be the gatekeeper:
Nor in 2020 has any state the independence and freedom to make its own laws, especially over trade. He may not have noticed but the exchange of goods and services has always been attended by concerns about standards and quality. The more countries try to gain from trade, the greater the concern to ensure common rules apply.
Those common rules being the smuggling in of the manner Hutton thinks we all should live. Which is also an idiocy when it comes to trade. For there is trade in different standards.
There are different types of bread out there. The artisan, hand moulded – and grossly expensive – chaff filled loaf for those who desire large stools with which to shit all over Hampstead. Industrially produced cotton wool for those who prefer to be constipated in Harlesden.
These are different standards and we have free trade in bread quite happily, thank you. We have different standards in cars, small, large, fast, convertible (imagine, a car deliberately made without a roof!) etc. We have trade in cars as some have noticed.
We have different standards in….well, you get the point. We can and should also have different standards in animal welfare standards. In how much chlorine is used to wash chicken or salad. How much carbon is used in the manufacture of all or any of them.
The idea that free trade requires common standards is a myth – for one of the things we have trade in is standards. It’s a convenient myth though for it provides a method for the Fat Controllers to gain that control – in the determination of the standards of those things we may trade.
And do note that human freedom is maximised when we are at liberty to decide which standards best meet our own desires. Which is why Hutton is against such variation of course, for he’s a progressive, not a liberal.
Due diligence: Common Law. A producer is obliged to provide product that will not harm the user. How that is done is up to the producer and can vary which matters not as long as what ever is done is effective. If they fail, contract law, tort law, criminal law… brick through the shop window.
Alas that leaves ‘law-makers’ with nothing to make and thus surplus to requirements.
Another thing about standards: If you have the right to “petition the government for redress of grievances” (as it’s codified in my country), then standards will be influenced, and those with the biggest incentive to do so are the producers themselves, and they often exercise that right with exclusion in mind. If my company doesn’t manufacture a convertible car, I will feign horror as I insist that the “warrant of merchantability” (our version of what John B is getting at, below) ensure that all cars come with a hard roof.
I just can’t understand why everyone can’t see that Will Hutton is a fool. Surely it’s obvious?
Can anyone explain?
The BBC love him…