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like without government intervention, strawberry jam would have wood in it. like it's a thing. food companies realized that they could use less of the expensive strawberries as ingredients and just use wood. there are laws you cannot legally call it strawberry jam if you do this. you have to call it a strawberry product or spread. food companies are always trying to get that shit through. they have lobby groups pushing that all the time

it is more expensive to put metal detectors in a food processing plant. companies want to cut costs. it is a legal requirement in a lot of countries to have them. so it forces companies to install them.

also to do routine inspections. that is a government requirement. so are building codes. a lot of codes are the bare minimum. like some companies will exceed the code and have more protections but a lot don't. like if it is not in the code, they don't do it. so that's why having governing bodies that regulate building safety, worker safety, food safety and product safety are crucial. because without them, your employer will not see the need to have exit doors with quick release handles, or do routine fire sprinkler inspections or have road salt for the sidewalks. some of it is basic fucking stuff.

companies when left alone do not regulate themselves. it's been historically untrue. companies want to give you a product that is cheap for them to make and that they can sell at the highest price so they can get the most profit. for everyone who loves capitalism, that's what it is. the free market will not self-regulate. if you don't have anti-monopoly laws and anti-wage theft laws and workers' protections, the open market will not fix that organically.

Sinclair was a journalist for a socialist newspaper and spent a VERY long time interviewing and going into the meat packing district in Chicago to get every single disgusting detail he could and show to the world what capitalism does to humans when running unchecked. The public took it as an exposé on the meat packing industry and what we eat. Multiple things can be true at once.

In this book they talk in EXCRUCIATING detail about the lack of safeguards, basic sanitation, protective gear, and overall dangers an unskilled worker faces. Limbs are lost and frozen. People fall into vats and can’t be fished out so they die and get processed as part of the product they’re selling (that’s the only story in the book that couldn’t be independently verified by Sinclair, but enough people told him about the multiple instances of it and it was plausible enough that he included it). Handling bones and refuse and phosphorous with zero ventilation in the room or protective breathing apparatus. No heat protection, no cold protection, breathing in ammonia, slipping in blood and entrails, gored by animals, overworking and underpaid, “government inspectors” easily bribed and drawn away to allow diseased meat to go through…. And then he tells you how long people work those jobs before they end up dying from easily preventable workplace injuries.

That’s what we fought to get rid of. And it took DECADES to even get that. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The Radium Girls. Hell, look at the fast fashion factories in Bangladesh and look how long it’s been since the last building collapse for putting too much machinery into a building not built or fortified for that much vibrating weight (the last collapse was in 2013. There have been multiple fires in the last 20 years that result in too many deaths)

Corporate lobbyists get politicians on their sides all the time.

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