Libertarian Opposition To GMOs Is A Mistake
The dark is scary because it’s the unknown. When man is deprived of one of his most fundamental modes of perception, his sight, he becomes anxious, cautious and nervous, and with good reason. It’s hard to evaluate potential dangers when you can’t see. This fear of the dark so common in humans reflects a more general unease at unfamiliar situations, which socially is reflected as a kind of reactionary spirit in suspicion and opposition to new things and ideas.
Science, being the chief mechanism for introducing novelty to mankind, (and yet grasped at only an elementary level by the masses), is therefore often a target for suspicion and mistrust less fit than darkness. Fracking, nuclear Power, the theory of evolution, and certain advancements in genetics have, despite scientific consensus been the targets of populist opposition, which can, through the wisdom of our glorious democratic system, spill into the domain of government enforcement.
One example of this relevant of late is that of GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, defined by the international regulatory agreements as “any living organism that possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology. Of course, novelty and modernity are relative terms, humans have been intentionally modifying living things through selective breeding for thousands of years. Due to recent advances in technology however, we’re now able to do so much more efficiently than our ancestors.
This of course carries the great humanitarian benefit of increasing crop yield, something surely any bleeding heart could get behind? But no, even while people the world over are ravaged by hunger and malnutrition it is supposed that the harm of “frankenfoods” outweigh the benefits.
So what exactly are the dangers of genetically modified foods, so dangerous that they can dissuade a rational person even from what could be a crucial blow against starvation? It doesn’t take much evidence, apparently.
Recently a team of Italian scientists led by Alessandro Nicolia have complied a great body of research done in the last decade, including 1,783 research papers and other relevant scholarly materials, weighing them against each other have concluded: “The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops.”
Keep in mind that this is not a new study, just a conclusive restatement of what has been the scientific consensus since at least 2002, the beginning of the period the reviewed studies were published in. Sadly however, democracy is not about what is factually correct, what is efficient, or what is just. It’s about what the majority believes, and the 51% is fickle and easily swayed into nonsense.
So it is this Wednesday when Washington State will vote on initiative 522: which will force food manufacturers to label GMO products as such. Let’s be clear: the anti GMO movement won’t stop at mandatory labeling, because why should they? They believe the stuff to be poison and at least for the most part they have the ideology that the people must be protected from the cabal of market capitalism which is always out to get them for profits (as though killing one’s customers was a sustainable business model).
However, it’s not all nanny statists who support initiative 522 and the like. Among the libertarian movement there has arisen a faction firmly opposed to GMOs with some even willing to allow the state to regulate them, because big carrots are a greater threat to the society than the expansion of state power.
Aside from the fact that they are feeding a dangerous fire of anti-science populism, this plainly compromises the very foundation of libertarianism: voluntary cooperation and emergent order. Make no mistake, mandatory labeling is coercion. Even if you don’t care about the non-aggression principle, think of the implications of such a position: How feasible is freedom really if we need a state just to food manufacturers from poisoning us?
Libertarians often make the argument for drug legalization that your body is your own to put whatever you want into, if it helps then, just think of GMOs like a drug. A drug with no scientifically confirmed danger to humans that “cures” hunger.