Don Boudreaux versus an authoritarian busybody

Editor, The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

Dear Editor:

Elizabeth Newton opines that "In a perfectly functioning economic world, all 
consumers would receive perfect education about good nutrition and then 
simultaneously demand that fast-food companies and grocery stores start offering 
healthy options, thus forcing Big Food to supply what the people demand.  Until 
that happens, we need regulation of Nestlé, Monsanto, McDonald’s and the rest of 
the moguls that dictate our diets" (Letters, Aug. 11).

If economic arrogance were calories, Ms. Newton's letter would make a Baconator 
burger seem like a broccoli floret.

She assumes that "Big Food" earns higher profits by selling products that 
consumers really don't want than by selling products that consumers really do 
want.  This startling proposition requires for its justification more than Ms. 
Newton's presumption that she knows other people's true preferences better than 
do those people themselves, and better than do the entrepreneurs who, in 
competitive markets, earn their livings by satisfying those preferences. 

In fact, the likes of Ms. Newton are simply pests preening as know-it-all 
"Progressives."  Her superciliousness highlights the truth of H.L. Mencken's 
observation that "one man who minds his own business is more valuable to the 
world than 10,000 cocksure moralists."*

Sincerely, 
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University