I'm in a country where I have been served coffee that was too hot to drink and some wonderful mushrooms on top of veggies that I had to blow on to cool off.
Japan is a country with few lawyers and little litigation.
Is my new found pleasure, here in Japan, a good thing for a pro commerce policy?
I generally defend American litigiousness. It is a price we pay for radical autonomous individualism. Does the same apply to our class action cases that suppress market freedoms? Should I defend these anti-hot coffee class actions?
I'm going to surprise you with my answer. 'Yes'.
Generally, the market should offer safe goods and services. Half of all customers have below average IQ's and their needs must be considered too. That includes serving coffee that is not too hot to scald them when the idiots spill it on themselves.
This corporate-legal paternalism annoys me no end. I stayed at a Wyndham Hotel in Colorado Springs where the water was not really hot, for my showers. Awful. It was the policy of the chain and I've never stayed in another one of their hotels.
What the market should provide is very hot food, coffee and shower water for those of us who want it. We get different kinds of whitening agents for our coffee, different sweeteners, we get different levels of cooking for our meats. We could get different temperatures for our coffee and other products. Commerce can offer those options.
Yes, commerce should protect the vulnerable population, but it should also give us high risk nuts our options. That is pro commerce not legal paternalism.