Who to Blame for a Hard Life?
Life in New Zealand has been tough lately — egg prices have roughly doubled. Every bakery and restaurant is complaining. The reason: a new animal welfare law took effect that bans keeping chickens in cages for egg production, citing animal suffering. Farmers must now free-range their hens, giving them plenty of space to live happily and lay eggs. But this raises costs, which get passed on to consumers.
Naturally, people are angry about expensive eggs and blame the government. The current Labour government is centre-left, so everyone assumes this is another “bleeding heart” policy from them. But as the saying goes, “Don’t blame society for bad luck, don’t blame the government for a hard life.” Is it really the current government’s fault?
History
Any policy takes time to implement. A quick online search reveals this policy was enacted 10 years ago — 2023 is just the final deadline. Per a NewsHub article:
When the new changes were announced, back in 2012, 84 percent of producers used the battery cage method, giving them one decade to implement the expensive changes….
So this was a decision made 10 years ago. And 10 years ago, the governing party wasn’t Labour — it was the now-opposition National Party. Informed readers wouldn’t blame Labour; they’d blame National. But is blaming National correct either?
Decision-Making
Read more carefully and you’ll find this line:
The law change will require more space for hens and determined conventional ‘battery’ cages will be illegal as of the end of December.
The keyword is “law”. New Zealand has three independent branches of government: Legislature, Judiciary, and Executive. Since this is a law, not an administrative policy, the blame lies with the legislature. Why did they pass a law that dramatically increased egg prices? New Zealand’s legislature is Parliament.
For Parliament to pass this law, a majority of MPs must have supported it. And who elected those MPs? All New Zealand voters, proportionally. So ultimately, the blame falls on the voting public. A majority of New Zealanders apparently decided that better living conditions for chickens were worth paying more for eggs.
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Summary
Some people easily carry past experiences into their current lives. But when the environment changes, past experience may no longer apply. Keeping an open, learning mindset is important.
Easter Egg
I forgot to turn off GitHub Copilot while writing this. It tried to help write the article. As always, the grammar was fine but the logic was… creative.
Figure 1: Turns out AI is a bleeding heart too.
Figure 2: This is brilliant — blaming the British colonists for rising egg prices. You have a future in politics.