The equating of using tax regimes and punitive excise duty to influence public action, with the totalitarian states of the 20th century who killed, maimed, and imprisoned those who even voiced dissent is ridiculous.

 

I was equating the mindsets involved. Totalitarianism starts when you decide your opponent has no right to an opinion. Once you have defined your opponents as untermenschen who have no right to be heard, then you have decreed they have no rights at all.

 

I'll call out totalitarianism anytime I see it

Thanks to iNow's post from the beginning of this discussion. Here it is again:

 

"But the obesity epidemic hardly looks like a growth killer. Highly processed corn-based food products, with lots of chemical additives, are well known to be a major driver of weight gain, but, from a conventional growth-accounting perspective, they are great stuff. Big agriculture gets paid for growing the corn (often subsidized by the government), and the food processors get paid for adding tons of chemicals to create a habit-forming – and thus irresistible – product. Along the way, scientists get paid for finding just the right mix of salt, sugar, and chemicals to make the latest instant food maximally addictive; advertisers get paid for peddling it; and, in the end, the health-care industry makes a fortune treating the disease that inevitably results.

"Coronary capitalism is fantastic for the stock market, which includes companies in all of these industries. Highly processed food is also good for jobs, including high-end employment in research, advertising, and health care. So, who could complain? Certainly not politicians, who get re-elected when jobs are plentiful and stock prices are up – and get donations from all of the industries that participate in the production of processed food. Indeed, in the US, politicians who dared to talk about the health, environmental, or sustainability implications of processed food would in many cases find themselves starved of campaign funds."

 

Lots of jobs and economic activity can be created by destroying the health of the population, including the medical industry addressing the symptoms of poor eating habits. If people ate correctly, the health care industry would shrink.

 

Thanks to some great posts by Phi for all!

Edited March 5, 201312 yr by Airbrush