Why try to align if we’re not going to align?

One of the assertions about trade that we’ve really never been able to get our heads around is this idea that in order to be able to trade then everyone must be following the same regulations. Regulations about packaging, or production proesses, or contents and so on. We run with the idea that of course you can compete upon the grounds of colour, or price, or image, of your product - and so can you upon regulation.

For example, the amount of mycotoxin allowed in English* horse biscuits:

In high doses mycotoxins can be damaging to human health and in its ruling the EU said that without tougher rules oat-derived products eaten in large quantities could be a “potential health concern”.

But the move threatens to discriminate against British oat farmers as mycotoxins occur more often and in larger concentrations in damp coastal climates such as the UK’s.

We can even run with a fairly simple piece of logic here. We are that little bit different therefore we should not have the same set of regulations. Thus the drive to sign up to their set of regulations is doomed to failure because we’ve all just agreed that we shouldn’t have the same regulations they do.

This is something that doesn’t worry us in the slightest. For we can indeed have competition based upon regulation. So, why not do that?

Tim Worstall

*Yes, horses in England, recall your Dr Johnson