The United States Government's Uniform Pricing System

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The responsibilities and obligations of a state government to its’ citizens are extensive. One of the main tasks of the state government is to make certain that all citizens can obtain the basic necessities for survival. As such, the state government must verify that food, nutrition, is sold at an affordable rate even to the poor working class. Should a problem arise in the food industry or commerce system, the state must assess and rectify the problem as it would prevent the citizens from purchasing the nutrition they require. In France, during the nineteenth century, the pricing system of the meat industry was discovered to be fundamentally flawed. In order to remedy this weakness, the very assessment of meat needed to be restructured.
In …show more content…

However, creating a uniform pricing system proved to be very difficult. Since prices were based on the quality of meats, an agreed upon system by which quality of meat is designated was essential in creating a singular pricing system. If the quality of the meat was decided by the butcher, then the butcher can claim any meat to be of the highest quality to gain profit. The issue of price would become the issue of quality. But opinions varied greatly on the terms that would measure the quality of the meat. Cattle farmers and butchers each had their own criteria for judging an animal’s worth. Eventually, the criteria were brought down to two characteristics, the species and the piece of the animal. (Lhuissier, …show more content…

The consumers lacked information and knowledge pertaining to the classification and quality of the meat they were purchasing. As a result, they became vulnerable to deception. Butchers were able to take advantage of the consumer’s ignorance and sell them cheap meat for the price of high quality meat. In order to counter this issue, the terms of classification of meat were published in home economics manuals at the start of the nineteenth century. Consumers were encouraged to educate themselves and learn more about how to distinguish between meats. (Lhuissier,

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