Question

What do you see as the pros and cons of government safety regulation? • Is business meeting its responsibilities to consumers with regard to safety, quality, pricing, and labeling and packaging of its products? If not, how might it do better? Provide an example from current events that you think supports your answer.

Answer 1

Regulations can be defined as the management and organization of systems in line with a set of rules. There are regulations out there for all parts of our daily life. Moreover, regulations are also present in business and in all kinds of political systems. Although regulations can make a lot of sense, they can also imply some problems.

Pros of government safety regulation

1) Safety Improvements: Regulations are meant to improve the overall safety level in all parts of our daily life. For instance, there might be regulations in place that buildings are only frequented by a limited number of people so that they are not at risk to collapse.

2) Improvement in health for the general public: Strict regulations can also improve the overall health levels of the general public. For instance, governments all over the world try to regulate the food market in order to protect people from the adverse health effects certain products could imply.

3) Holding people accountable: People are also held accountable for their actions. For instance, if you park your car in the wrong spot, you may get fined. If you drive too fast, you will have to pay for it as well in case you get caught. All those measures are in place to discourage people from actions that may harm the general public and to hold people accountable for their actions.

Cons of government safety regulation

1) Very Costly: Regulations increase the costs for companies since they have to assure compliance with those regulatory standards. Regulatory standards increase the costs for the government since authorities have to implement proper control mechanisms.

2) Competitiveness of a country might suffer: If there is are strict regulations in place in one country while there are only lax regulations in other countries, chances are that companies in countries with strict regulations may not be able to stay competitive in the long run since the development of products and the approval processes may take quite long while it may be quite easy to develop and get permissions to sell products in countries with lax regulatory standards.

3) Time-consuming: For example, every time a new regulation is introduced, companies in the respective industry have to adjust their production or distribution. Depending on the regulatory action, this can be quite time-consuming in some cases, especially if whole production chains are affected.

Here is a list of pros and cons, that are mentioned below.

In my opinion, Yes!

Business is meeting its responsibilities to consumers with regard to safety, quality, pricing, and labeling and packaging of its products but there is still scope of improvement.

PRODUCT SAFETY

Product safety is an ethical obligation insofar as companies have a duty to provide consumers with whatever it is they pay for and products are assumed to be safe for ordinary use. Every year millions of Americans require medical treatment from product-related accidents”. For example, drugs often have harmful side effects (including death) and many children’s toys contain harmful chemicals such as lead.

PRODUCT QUALITY

When a product is purchased, customers aren’t usually just buying an unknown object—they are usually buying an item of sufficient quality that performs a certain expected function. A broken TV set shouldn’t be sold as a “regular TV set.” It should be clear that it’s broken. Products must either conform to reasonable customer expectations or to the explicit claims made about it. This is especially important now that the quality of many products can’t be assessed quickly or without adequate expertise. We tend not to have adequate time to test an item before buying it, and we tend to lack the expertise required to know its quality. Many products are sold with a guaranteed level of quality, which is known as a warranty. For example, the manufacturer can promise that a TV set will last for two years without needing any repairs.

PRODUCT PRICING

Pricing practices are often meant to “manipulate people”. Price tags often have 99 cents included because many people don’t think of it as a dollar. For example, something could be sold for $19.99 instead of $20. Prices can be raised in the hopes to sell more products because sometimes people will be willing to buy something if the price is high—perhaps with the assumption that it has a higher quality. Sometimes similar products sell more often if they are available at different prices. This can give the illusion that the products are of varying qualities, when they might have nearly identical quality. Prices are often higher than they appear due to “hidden fees”. Prices are often raised by reducing quality or quantity (ibid.). For example, a container of peanuts can stay the same size but contain less.

PRODUCT LABELLING AND PACKAGING

The most important moral issue involving packaging is misleading packaging. Packaging must not be misleading because (a) it’s important for consumers to know what they are buying for the transaction to be legitimate and (b) it’s disrespectful to try to manipulate people. Customers might not want a product if they find out it’s unsafe or unhealthy, such as tobacco.

Despite a customer’s right to know what they are buying, companies often lie or prefer for their products to remain a mystery. In egregious cases, labels can be used as false advertising. For example, in 2008 Purely Juice sold juice labeled as “100% pomegranate juice” that contained mostly water and high fructose corn syrup (sugar). Another example is Taco Bell, which has been charged with misleading customers by advertising the use of “100% beef” when the meat substance is only partially beef.