Do you believe that companies should be responsible for the safety of their products? Well, the European Union does, and their latest proposed plan (highlighted by Andrew Leonard on Salon.com) designed to enforce responsibility in manufacturers is already drawing howls of protest from business interests who'd rather not be bothered with the implications of the toxicity of their products.

The new plan, called REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals), would, in Leonard's words, "require manufacturing companies to prove in advance that the chemicals in their products aren't dangerous, as well as publish previously tightly held toxicity data on the REACH Web site." In the words of a software company director, "With REACH, companies will bear the responsibility for the chemicals in their products and will have to know the impact of those chemicals, whether they're cancerous or otherwise toxic."

What a concept.

We often hear complaints about the heavy hand of government regulation. But without sensible regulation, the marketplace can and will put all of us at risk with materials that are hazardous at all stages of their creation, use, and disposal, for the sake of quicker and larger profits. For example, consider the variety of plastics that you are likely surrounded with at this very moment.

The free market, left to its own devices, will maximize its efficiency at generating profit, and things like safety and health concerns are inherently inefficient and impede the optimization of pure capitalism.

With more and more focus on quarterly stockholder reports and other short-term measurements of success, and new stories every day of executives bailing out of companies with golden parachutes, we can't trust corporations to consider the damaging long-term impact of practices that hurt the environment or customers. To put it simply, the market is amoral, and only wise human intervention can give it a heart.

Labels: Culture