Is this an example of a darker side of capitalism in your opinion?

Question

A pharmaceutical drug corporation, as any corporation, has an obligation to try and make the most profit that it can for its company shareholders. We know that 99.9% of the time treating the disease is more profitable than curing the disease, you keep the customer alive and you keep the custom coming back. So the corporation should try and develop treatments not cures because this is the most profitable thing they can do with the resources they have, if they did anything else they would be cheating the shareholders by not doing everything they can to increase profits to a maximum. This is business motivated by the bottomline not the results of its actions, is this a small example of a shortcoming of capitalism in your opinion? Care of humans being put second to profits?

Answer 1

yes and.......Been like that forever.

Answer 2

Definitely a darker side of capitalism. It's what the communists warned us about. But, it's still the best option we have.

The patents are designed to reward innovation for a certain time period only. And, hopefully, the more effective the cure, the more money the company makes. A total cure of the cause should way outsell a treatment of a symptom. And it's impossible to make a profit by charging more than the market will bear (or more than you can afford).

Consider the alternatives. You can't expect cures for everything to appear magically overnight with noone bearing the cost. Innovations are expensive at first, but will eventually get to the masses. And at this point in history, the development / distribution of new products is actually faster than ever before.

And what if an inexpensive cure (for anything) was declared and delivered overnight? Don't you think an ample test period should be given? What if the 'cancer innoculation pill' ends up creating a new disease that kills all of its users after 20 years? Lipitor - yes, it reduces cholesterol, but we don't know what new side effects it might create - that may take decades to figure out.

With a truly free market, hopefully, the needs / desires for a true cure will eventually eliminate this 'milking' effect - and, at a safe pace, encourage the development of true cures. If you could innovate a cure, wouldn't you do it and defeat these 'milkers'? Even for a one-time profit? Or for a shot at sainthood?

I agree that the system might use a little tweaking, but as long as competitive innovators will be allowed to come up with real cures, we'll really be ok.

Check out www.linkman.com - this is a perfect example of an innovation that counters the pharmaceutical companies' move to sell nicotine addicts even more drugs.

Hopefully this guy will succeed.

Answer 3

I think that it is a very good example. Even though "the company is run by people" money tends to make them "unhuman" and forget the others, even though some win enough money to assure a good life for 3 generations after. When they have money they want more and other people aren't important. You can see it these days best at the politicians, they don't want the power to do good to the people, but to double or triple their profits with as less work as possible. Corporations work the same way, profit profit profit. If you want a nice example look at "The Incredibles" where Mr.Incredible works at an assurance company and his boss is mad at him because he helps his clients get money from the company. It's just as that, the wealth of the shareholders is more important than the ruined lives of the people. Pretty sad.

Answer 4

Pharmaceuticals are not produced in a capitalist system.

The drug business is a contraption made up of government subsidies, university committees, government regulation, and government payment. It is a completely designed system.

What's so false about our current drug development system is that capitalist elements exist within a government managed matrix. The government manages elements of it, but allows industry to glue those elements together - and they do it in the heartless way you've described.

There is nothing dark about capitalist decision making. When the price of corn or copper is determined everyday on the commodities exchange is solves everyone's information problem all at once. Very efficient. Look at Zimbabwe for an example of how the other method works.

But drug development needs a gentler, more compassionate hand than auction bidding. If the government truly controlled the entire process, and left the field open for scientific and humanitarian competition, rather than economic competition, more and better outcomes would occur and people would still make a lot of money on the entire process.

That's my opinion.

Answer 5

I think your example may rank up there with internal combustion engines that burn water.

I have yet to see or read about a pharmaceutical company or medical doctor that ever had a cure for anything. A doctor sets my broken arm, he or she does not cure it - it mends itself. A doctor gives me a shot. It tricks my system into producing anti-bodies which are what really protects me from the disease.

I have a parasite, the doctor gives me a pill which is strong enough to kill the parasite but to weak to kill me. Its o.k., because only one in 10,000 might die along with the parasite and only one death was noted in the testing before the FDA approved the drug. You argument suffers because your claim that they have cures just isn't so. You give them credit for something they can't do even if they wanted to.

All of the above needed to be accomplished at a profit.

I am not knocking any of the above instances. I believe that making money has a very dark side but that goes on in all political and economic systems. It goes on in the worlds great religions right on down to the scalper at a rock concert or a camel driver in the Arabian desert.

How about this:

There is a drug company that has a product which puts down the symptoms of herpes. It does not cure herpes and the person who takes the drug, if I catch the ads correctly, may still infect somebody. In other words they are still contagious. I am not against anybody being free of symptoms, but it does bring up some ethical issues.

I think you need to roll out some specific examples. If one were to consider that shareholds are humans, it follows that they need to be cared for also. Company profits take care of them very well.

It seems that capitalism is pretty much the primer in the world wide push toward a "global village" while socialism is pretty much dead or over looked due to religious and survival issues.

I think arguments over capitalism took a blow when the Berllin Wall fell. If I were debating your argument I would suggest that nobody really cares and you need to move on with your life.

Answer 6

Your example is a little more direct than is likely. At the level of cure or treat, the company would probably go with treat for fear that the decision could become public, at the very worst. The decision to not maximize profit can be supported.

The true problem comes in when there is an existing moneymaker, such as lipitor. Will that company invest in any research that could cut their profit stream? Not likely. Will they bring a drug to market that will reduce their existing profits at a better price to the consumer - NO. The blockbuster profits taken from patent-protected drugs are unstoppable.

Answer 7

It depends on where you draw the line. If a treatment is better than a cure, then if a company invents a cure, then it should dumb it down, make it less effective, so it can only be used as treatment? And if another company invents a cure, should your company examine the disease and improve it, make it more virulent so it doesn't go extinct? And if there aren't any good diseases, should the company invent an artificial one, so that then it can make billions treating its outbreaks? Oh no, that's bioterrorism and illegal. The government will stop that. That's the purpose of the government - to balance out the shortcomings of capitalism, smooth out the rough edges and direct the enterpreneurship in the right direction with punishment-reward incentives.

Answer 8

Remember pharmaceutical companies mostly do the manufacturing of drugs and finalizing end results and perhaps tailoring a drug a little bit and then get them approved by the government. A huge majority of pharmaceutical research is done by universities and other educational institutions that receive funding from the government. Also remember where the government makes their money, by taxing the profits of the pharmaceutical companies. Dont hate capitalism. Capitalism has contributed more to humanity in 10 years than a thousand years of anything else (socialism, monarchial, mercantile, etc)

Answer 9

I strongly believe in capitalism, but I can't deny it, it would be more profitable to treat symptoms than it would be to affect a cure. But then again, I've read that you could also look at any profit over the bare minimum as exploitation and therefore unethical.

Profits are the "religion" of business, but are they the sole end? We have "feel-good" employee benefits, and companies "give back to the community" through employee volunteerism. Companies don't have to do anything other than make a profit, but they do. BTW, can't business owners do what they want with their profits and support any political party or belief system they like? Who says it has to be fair? Anyway, in your scenario, ethical people would opt for a cure over "making a buck" -- but ethics means a sense of right and wrong, and that must come from a higher power. Oops, we can't have that now, can we?

Answer 10

Shareholders always seem to come first before that of the consumer.

Pharmaceutical companies would have to be the worst, because they are playing with people's lives - I dont think we will see this change in our lifetime because at our stage of development it is a good way to keep population down and so long as the Governments back them, nothing will stop this way of making money for the shareholders.

Answer 11

Hi. I can see your point with this. However. Business does NOT need capitalism to exist. I say this is a darker example of Human Nature in general-no need to blame capitalism. (Unless you hate capitalism). These people who strive for profit at the expense of a stranger's health are at fault. The greedy shareholders AND the company who supports their cause are Really to blame, just for being greedy and callous humans.Capitalism is only a way for them to exert their greed. They could have just as easily been criminals without an economic philosophy. I would bet that they use capitalism as their excuse for being evil humans.
This issue is one of humans wanting extreme money (greed), and trying to hide that evil pursuit (greed) by saying "It's Capitalism's fault, not ours!"