The Brussels Effect | Hacker News Reader

The Brussels Effect

en.wikipedia.org

37 pointsdonpott14 comments

Having worked in both, I personally prefer "race to the top" jurisdictions to "race to the bottom" ones.

hog feed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23291595

meat packing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23367350

california effect (in passing): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23829872

(Incidentally, the germans have recently had their own meatpacking Covid problems, due to having copied the US efficient conveyer belt model while subcontracting to eastern european firms to skirt domestic labour laws. Those loopholes have reportedly been closed.)

Race to the top only works if accompanied by highly redistributive taxation to make the top affordable to the lower economic class.

I believe the increased demand for the higher quality mans it becomes cheaper. So instead of time efficiency turning into more meat for the same cost, it becomes the same meat volume but better quality for the same cost.

Highly redistributive taxation is a good thing (if properly done), given the high inequality in many countries. "Growing inequality" sounds innocuous but is really one of the root causes of the increasingly fucked up situation many people in developer countries found themselves in the past decades

Here it works without as much redistribution as elsewhere because the lower classes have good wages. (They are currently annoyed that the virus means they'll probably have to take their August vacation domestically rather than internationally this year.)

I wonder what this means for brexit then, given the current UK government is trying to gut food standards.

It means that places that aren't hit as hard by the Brussels effect (America) become more attractive origins of imported goods (chlorinated chicken).

Factory farming of animals is disgusting no matter if it is chlorinated or not - and this is coming from a meat eater (trying to be a vegaterian).

Perhaps some good will come out of this, and people will start to think a bit more about where their food comes from and how it was made.

Agreed. Just for clarity, my choice was a tongue in cheek synecdoche.

"trying to gut food standards"

Citation needed. The UK has the foods standard agency, which actually do a pretty good job. This is not going to change.

Yeah I remember reading about this about 20 years ago. Take a look at what Germany did to water down co2 emissions rules, or the widespread environmental destruction within the EU carried out with the complicity of Brussels, then come back and continue the argument.

I'm not necessarily doubting you but can you point to some specific examples re: "environmental destruction within the EU"?

Also: Germany watering down CO2 emission rules seems to have more to do with Germany's power within the EU and less with the gravitational pull of the European market to warp the behavior of non-eu entities (which this Wiki article is about)

Hey, thanks for sharing this! I've had a number of discussions with people about this very effect but didn't realize there was a name for it, so I learned something new today – thanks!

Huh, I thought that the Brussels Effect was going against the votes of the elected parliament members.

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