dagblog - Comments for "Cooking in Rome: Soda Bans and the Illusion of Choice"

If a recipe calls for 8 oz of

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:28:34 +0000

If a recipe calls for 8 oz of tuna, it will require 8 oz of tuna or the meal will not turn out correctly (without doing math on all the other ingredients). Changing the size of the can doesn't change this reality - nor does opening a can obviate consuming the entire contents in one sitting.

Manipulation is kind of a misnomer for what we're talking about here. As far as soda goes, there are typically cups available to purchase soda in any size one would like to enjoy (and, actually, there are three different sizes of tuna can available at my local market). Obviously, there is the possibility for consumers to make a range of choices at point of purchase. To me manipulation would mean removing the ability to purchase anything but a monster cup of soda. The argument that aggressive pricing to make larger sizes more economically attractive is manipulative to the point it robs one of free choice seems hyperbolic to the extreme.

But even if all your assumptions/assertions are accurate, banning large sodas is still a bullshit approach. If you feel the problem is that people have been mislead by marketing manipulation to the point that free will is gone, isn't the problem really a lack of effective competition in the marketplace of ideas?

Why isn't the correct solution to counter "manipulative" marketing with marketing that manipulates the targets into doing what it is that you have decided is better for them than the choices they are currently making? Your premise appears to advocate leveraging government authority as a lazy tool for folks who hold strong opinions about how their fellow Americans should behave, but don't want to invest the energy and resources it would take to sell their ideas and have those behavioral changes occur voluntarily.

Maybe we should tax the more

Donal — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:21:01 +0000

In reply to Peter, this is an eloquent

Maybe we should tax the more dangerous types of soda, like Jolt, at a higher rate.

Peter, this is an eloquent

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:36:00 +0000

In reply to I think we have the issue

Peter, this is an eloquent defense, but there is an essential difference between the power of a government agency and that of a corporate marketing department. The marketing department can determine what products its company supplies. A government agency--if invested with the power that Bloomberg wishes--can determine what products its citizens can buy. So sure, Ford only sold cars black cars. But no one had to buy a Ford. By contrast, imagine that a federal agency were to mandate that all automobiles be black. You see the difference?

But what if all the manufacturers had followed Ford's black-only policy? Wouldn't that have been the same outcome? But the other manufacturers didn't follow Ford and for good reason--because there was still plenty of demand for colorful cars. And soon enough, even Ford abandoned its black-only policy in order to compete with them.

Of course, not every consumer can buy anything he or she wants. Our choices are constrained. But these constraints are subject to demand. Even a relatively small share of the consumer base can command a market for the products it desires. That's why stores sell quinoa. That's why some cars come in hot-pink. And that's why you can even buy mini-cans of coke.

By contrast, government agencies are not responsive to demand. Sure, people can vote a mayor out of office every four years, but that's a crude tool for determining the size of a Coke bottle, and it requires a majority. The pink-car and quinoa crowd would have no hope of legislating availability of their favorite products if an agency decided to prohibit them.

That doesn't mean that agencies should never regulate consumer choice. The negative social impact of dangerous products sometimes outweighs the interests of those who want to consume them. But 20-oz bottles and cups are not the primary cause of obesity in NYC, and their harmful consequences do not meet the threshold for government intervention.

I think we have the issue

Peter Schwartz — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:59:02 +0000

In reply to Sure, anyone who piously

I think we have the issue backwards.

Choice, at its root, is just the ability to say yes or no or say yes to this one instead of that one.

So Henry Ford offered everyone a choice of car color as long as it was black because they could choose to buy his car or not.

Were we to ban SuperGulps, we would not be limiting freedom of choice--as the critics claim--we would be providing different choices and, perhaps, even more of them than they have now. For example, if we capped the biggest size a store could offer, then manufacturers might subdivide the maximum volume into a greater number of smaller sizes.

As AA says, we don't have the choice right now of ordering smaller sizes--everything has been super-sized. And "we" did not decide we wanted SuperGulps. They were presented to us with the right price incentives, and we bought. So, in a very real sense, it is 7/11 et al who've eliminated choices we used to have. "Twelve full ounces, that's a lot! Twice as much for a nickel, too. Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you."

It's getting harder and harder to find and choose 12-oz sodas in bottles --though, I admit, you can find "personal" soda and beer sizes at supermarkets.

So, at bottom, I think what Doc is saying is that the issue is not "freedom of choice." It is which choices do we have. And who gets to decide which choices we have. And why. Whether it's the government, the market, or the R&D department, other people are deciding which choices we will be presented with. Then, of course, we get to decide whether we want a black car or would rather take the bus or subway.

A lot depends on whether you feel that government setting some limits curbs your freedom to choose more than the corporate suite deciding and the market then confirming the "correctness" of those choices. In the first case, you can petition your elected leaders. In the second case, you can stop buying SuperGulp and hope that enough other people do the same to move the market in your direction.

Americans tend to think the second case allows them more freedom. But I'm not sure that's true. Look how NYC responded to the uproar around size limits. I'm not sure we, the people, have such direct control over what Pepsi does. We can write them; we can complain. Ironically, we can complain to our congressman. But if they're making money with the big sizes then what leverage do we have? And if it makes overwhelming economic sense for them to offer bigger sizes, how can we argue with that?

I was going to say...if Pepsi is making money with bigger and bigger sizes, then "the market" and thus "the people" have voted for it with their pocketbooks.

But on second thought, I wonder if that's really true. As Doc says, most people simply acquiesce and make do. They want a soda and that's the size on offer, so they buy it. They may not really like it. They may leave it half full. But they buy it.

So the question is...is a purchase like a vote?

Many of us hold our noses and buy...and also hold our noses and vote. But somehow, to me, it still feels like I have more say in what the government does than over what Pepsi does. These days, of course, that's a hard argument to make, so I guess I have to leave the question hanging-:)

I guess one difference is this. With a purchase, you're saying yes or no to what is presented to you by someone else. With a vote, you have some say in what gets presented or, more broadly, in what we do as a society. That is, if you want something that isn't currently presented, then you have a better shot of making that happen through the government you voted in.