From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Jun 06 2002 - 16:54:01 MDT
Samantha writes
> There have been instances of specifically going against free
> market practices to prevent cheaper manufacturers of certain
> life saving drugs (quite legal manufacturers) from competing in
> African markets. There is nothing terribly complex about the
> death toll from that or it being against libertarian and other
> principles to do this. Some of the drugs in question were not
> invented by a long process of this kind. Variations on existing
> drugs were patented and made to monopolize treatment in the
> regions effected. While the general story is more complex this
> does not get rid of such cases of out and out abuse and pure
> greed on a massively deadly scale.
On some days, I think that there must be a gene
in the human genome that causes people to rail
endlessly about greed or, in the old days, "man's
inhumanity to man". (Boy, if you were around in
the 60's, you sure got tired of that phrase.)
It never does any good. Usually, it has no effect
at all, although there have been occasions where
it appears to have been instrumental in fomenting
revolution, whereupon "the people's" representatives
proceed to remold society and make things even worse.
The facts in your paragraph above should not prompt
us to moralize against greed, but instead should
provoke us focus on just why competition failed in
those markets. In other words, did someone use force
to stifle competition? Knowing little about the
situation, I will nonetheless predict that you will
find that some government or other interferred with
people's freedom to trade with whom they pleased.
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:38 MST