What happened to caveat emptor? That is the title of a discussion by Professor Gunnar Trumbull of the Harvard Business School on his new book Consumer Capitalism: Politics, Product Markets, and Firm Strategy in France and Germany. Caveat Emptor means ‘let the buyer beware’ — a term that Prof Trumbull says has become redundant in the western world over the last four decades as consumer protection rules have evolved to provide vast statutory protection to buyers.

He argues that consumer attitudes and protection standards vary in intent and scope from one country to another and influence the quality of products and design. “Today, arguably no other economic actor in the advanced industrial countries — not the investor, not the worker, not the welfare recipient — enjoys a more thorough set of legal and institutional protections than the modern consumer when he or she enters the corner store,” argues Prof Trumbull.

In fact, one would even argue that the pendulum may have swung to the other extreme in America where MacDonald’s was sued by a customer who spilt scalding-hot coffee on her own laps and by the parents of obese kids who gorged on junk food and held the food chain responsible for their condition. In India, the concept of ‘caveat emptor’ is alive and kicking and we have a long way to go before consumer laws evolve adequately.

That will happen only when all stakeholders — manufacturers, the media (including advertising agencies), policy makers and the judiciary — realise that they are all consumers too. Some things are indeed improving, but slowly. For instance, only recently, television advertising moved into the realm of co-regulation with a government notification making the Advertising Standards Council of India’s (ASCI) code compulsorily applicable to all TV advertisements.

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