Antibiotics show free market failure

[pErvinalia]

Why can't the free market do everything? What kind of religion is this?!?

[Hermit]

Why can't the free market do everything? What kind of religion is this?!?

Well, it's like this: Free enterprise is about making making money. If there is no profit in doing something, it's not going to happen, no matter how socially desirable it is. That's just how lolbertardianism works. Or doesn't.

[Seth]

Why can't the free market do everything? What kind of religion is this?!?

Well, it's like this: Free enterprise is about making making money. If there is no profit in doing something, it's not going to happen, no matter how socially desirable it is. That's just how lolbertardianism works. Or doesn't.

Wrong. Free markets don't respond positively to unprofitable ventures because they are not supposed to. Funding socially desirable things is not the job of the free market and you shouldn't expect it to be. It has nothing whatever to do with Libertarianism, the barrier your social programming faces is one of trying to shovel snow with a hay fork. It's simply not designed to do that job, so you have to find the proper tool to achieve your goal, which in this case is in fact Libertarianism, which holds that if something actually is socially desirable, then it will get funded by those who find it to be socially desirable on a voluntary basis.

The problem is that not everything you think is either a crisis or socially desirable actually is, it's just something you and a few other people would like to happen.

When something becomes truly socially desirable but unprofitable, then the people who desire that amenity or service will fund it. That's how public parks and swimming pools get built and operated.

[rainbow]

It isn't profitable to clean the streets, collect garbage or to treat sewerage.

You think we should just wait until the stink is unbearable?

Then let those with sensitive noses pay for the cleanup, while the Libertarians get free services for nothing?

[Hermit]

Why can't the free market do everything? What kind of religion is this?!?

Well, it's like this: Free enterprise is about making making money. If there is no profit in doing something, it's not going to happen, no matter how socially desirable it is. That's just how lolbertardianism works. Or doesn't.

Wrong. Free markets don't respond positively to unprofitable ventures because they are not supposed to. Funding socially desirable things is not the job of the free market and you shouldn't expect it to be. It has nothing whatever to do with Libertarianism, the barrier your social programming faces is one of trying to shovel snow with a hay fork. It's simply not designed to do that job

Isn't that what I said?

[MrJonno]

I think we all agree in this thread bar the difference between 'failing' and not attempting which seems pretty academic

[Warren Dew]

Why can't the free market do everything? What kind of religion is this?!?

Well, it's like this: Free enterprise is about making making money. If there is no profit in doing something, it's not going to happen, no matter how socially desirable it is. That's just how lolbertardianism works. Or doesn't.

Wrong. Free markets don't respond positively to unprofitable ventures because they are not supposed to. Funding socially desirable things is not the job of the free market and you shouldn't expect it to be.

To the contrary: funding socially desirable things is exactly the job of the free market. The things desired by society are the things society is willing to pay for; if there's something no one is willing to pay for, then it's not socially desirable, irrespective of how people jabber about it.

[piscator]

If it weren't for government seed money and low interest loans, the REA, the WPA, and the TVA, most of "The American Heartland" would vote on paper ballots, because there would still be no electricity available outside cities.

[Warren Dew]

If it weren't for government seed money and low interest loans, the REA, the WPA, and the TVA, most of "The American Heartland" would vote on paper ballots, because there would still be no electricity available outside cities.

They likely drive to cities or towns to vote anyway.

[piscator]

If it weren't for government seed money and low interest loans, the REA, the WPA, and the TVA, most of "The American Heartland" would vote on paper ballots, because there would still be no electricity available outside cities.

They likely drive to cities or towns to vote anyway.

Maybe, but only after they hand pumped fuel into whatever vehicle they might use...The point is that the free market did not deem it profitable to electrify vast areas of the US, so it fell on citizens to do it another way. Welcome to Las Vegas, a booming metropolis of Free Enterprise, sponsored by Socialist electricity from Hoover Dam.

[Blind groper]

I read somewhere that it costs about a billion dollars per drug to develop, from initial idea, to reality, through all the testing, and to the marketplace. If the taxpayer supplied a subsidy of dollar for dollar to drug companies for new antibiotic development, it would cost the taxpayer $500 million per new antibiotic on average. One new antibiotic every couple of years would be enough to fend off antibiotic resistance. So that is less than $1 per year per person. Logically, the American taxpayer subsidises American drug companies. European taxpayers, the European drug companies etc. Such a subsidy is so low in cost, and so important, that it seems to be just government inertia that stops it.

Would you be willing to pay an extra $1 per year to make sure you do not die of a common infection, where the bug is antibiotic resistant?

[piscator]

— A new report shows taxpayers often foot the bill to help develop new drugs, but it's private companies that reap the lion's share of profits.

In one case, the federal government spent $484 million developing the cancer drug Taxol — derived from the bark of Pacific yew trees — and it was marketed under an agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb starting in 1993. The medical community called it a promising new drug in the fight against ovarian and breast cancer.

Since then, Bristol-Myers Squibb has sold $9 billion worth of Taxol worldwide, according the the General Accounting Office report released today.

The National Institutes of Health have received just $35 million in royalties from Bristol-Myers, however.

Bristol did not discover the drug. The federal government did — with taxpayer dollars — and then negotiated a licensing agreement with the pharmaceutical giant.

"The federal government repeatedly dropped the ball," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. "Or they didn't realize they had the ball when it came to protecting the public's interest in Taxol."

Taxpayers Foot the Bill

So, taxpayers footed part of the original bill and now those who use Taxol are paying a second time.

The Medicare program alone paid nearly $700 million over a five-year period, to buy a drug the government helped develop.
...

https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/YourMoney/story?id=129651

[JimC]

Those poor, poor corporations, bullied, abused and over-taxed by nasty Marxist governments...

[rainbow]

Those poor, poor corporations, bullied, abused and over-taxed by nasty Marxist governments...

Corporations are people too.

Corporationist!

[Seth]

It isn't profitable to clean the streets, collect garbage or to treat sewerage.

You think we should just wait until the stink is unbearable?

Then let those with sensitive noses pay for the cleanup, while the Libertarians get free services for nothing?

No, of course not. Any Libertarian or businessperson recognizes the value of clean, safe streets, good paving, attractive landscaping and other amenities that bring customers to their stores. But providing those amenities is not what the free market is for. Such things are essentially part of the cost of doing business, so companies that value image and consumer comfort will spend money to make their businesses and the surrounding areas attractive and safe, which is why businesses often pay taxes suggested by group organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, in order to improve their profitability.

So I suppose in an abstract way the free market actually does deal with services and amenities that aren't directly related to profit-making that benefit the public more directly than the businesses themselves.

But what Libertarians and free marketeers understand is that such things will be provided for without coercive force because it is in the rational self-interest of businesses and indeed individuals to create living environments and business spaces that are comfortable and attractive to consumers and which operate efficiently so as to keep costs down.

The fundamental cognitive failure of socialism and Marxism is the presumption that such things will not occur without coercive government intervention, direction and central planning. Streets, highways, parks, swimming pools, libraries and all the other non-profit-generating infrastructure of society exists because people WANT such amenities, not because some government bureaucrat decides that's what's best for them. And they come about as the community is sufficiently motivated and the economy is strong enough to support the public funding of such infrastructure. Where the residents can't afford to pave the streets or put in curbs and gutters or build parks, forcing them to pay for these amenities is not doing them a service, it's bullying them into doing what some politician or bureaucrat thinks is best.

Libertarianism eschews this sort of coercive behavior in favor of a system where those who wish to see amenities and services are welcome to pay for them voluntarily, thereby gaining the use of these amenities without charge. Those who do not wish to participate in the capital expenditure to create the amenity or service don't get to use it for free, they must pay a fee to use them, or not use them at all. If you don't pay your park improvement fee voluntarily, you don't get to use the park.

This allows the individual to pick and choose what public services and amenities he wishes to support voluntarily. If you never go swimming, you don't have to pay for the public pool.

Pay as you go and user pays allows people to make their own decisions about how they spend their money without being forced to pay for the harebrained schemes of politicians that are of no use to them. In this way, politicians are forced to PERSUADE the community that the plan they have is useful, desirable, necessary and economical in order to get the project funded.

That's called "liberty."

Just because you think some public project is a good idea doesn't mean you're right or that everyone (or anyone) else should be obliged to pay for it.