This is the second in a series of posts on animal rights-related issues and how they could be solved in a libertarian fashion, perhaps more effectively than current methods the Humane Society is using. Yesterday’s and today’s posts focus on the Truth in Fur Labeling Act of 2009, and how the Humane Society might be better served using other methods to try to stop these deceptive companies and importers.
These retailers and importers have shown that they have no ethics– mislabeling fur or saying it’s not fur is clearly a deceptive business practice and is against the law, as the Humane Society asserts in their lawsuits, yet the companies have done it anyway. So why Truth in Fur Labeling Act of 2009“>work to get another law passed, one which these lawbreakers will inevitably ignore, too? Maybe this law has some magic fairy dust sprinkled on it that will make these scofflaw companies magically toe the legal line from now on?
My question to the Humane Society is this: what does the Truth in Fur Labeling Act of 2009 have that the previous three federal laws the Humane Society is suing under do not have? Perhaps it would be best to spend your time and money enforcing the laws we already have.
The Humane Society writes in its fact sheet (PDF), “The labeling law has not kept up with changes in the marketplace.” That’s the problem with laws, isn’t it? They’re not set by the marketplace, so they have a tendency to not keep up with it. Perhaps that’s why we should avoid them if there’s an alternative in the first place. Consumers have been trying to avoid fur for a long time, let’s let them by suing the bejeezus out of those who would sell fur to those who don’t want it.
People today think they’re avoiding fur if it’s not labeled, precisely because there’s a law mandating that it be labeled. But there’s a loophole, as there always is, and Clinton widened the loophole, so now we have people buying fur who wouldn’t if they knew it was fur. They think they don’t have to look because the label and the government will tell them all they need to know.
This is partly caused by the existence of the law in the first place. If consumers were personally responsible for figuring out if what they were buying was fur, maybe they’d take more than a cursory look at it and figure out that it is in fact coming from a domestic dog (as the HSUS found some fur trim in major department stores was). *Of course, this is a better argument in case studies like the FDA. Fur should be labeled, no exceptions. I just think that companies would be more accurate with labeling if they were in danger of being put out of business for an incident of mislabeling, rather than in danger of a small fine or slap on the wrist from violating a federal law or FTC regulation.
Finally, the labeling as actually mandated by the Federal Trade Commission can have the result of making things more confusing for the consumer. Raccoon dog, which is a species of canine more related to a dog than a raccoon, is often skinned alive for its fur and listed on fur labeling, per the FTC official mandate, as “Asiatic raccoon.” People might not care about wearing raccoon fur, but the FTC’s regulations won’t even let the company list the fur as coming from a dog even if they wanted to. When I see “Asiatic raccoon,” I think raccoon, not dog. Don’t you?
Please tell me how this kind of labeling doesn’t make things even worse for the consumer.
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