Why do they have to pay off the government? You’re still assuming some government control, but in a truly free market capitalist system, the government would not have any influence in the market anyway, so paying them off would yield 0 results. You directly say the less government control the better, that’s a deeply capitalistic sentiment.
I feel as though you’re also assuming I’m 100% advocating for what I’m describing. This is incorrect, because I believe some statehood is necessary to ward off the inherent chaos of a completely free society. The one and only point my post makes, is that the systemic flaw pointed out by the post is absolutely not a capitalist one, regardless of political alignment the post is incorrect.
Whether you’re more capitalistic or socialistic, the first step to solving a problem is proper diagnosis.
You’re saying it’s not capitalist because of government involvement, but the government has to be involved in order to enforce capitalism. A private entity can claim ownership over something, but what enforces that claim? I said “the less government control the better” as in better for the monopolistic companies who wouldn’t have regulators threatening to break up their monopoly or having to pay them off.
I didn’t say anything regarding what you advocate, I’m just pointing out that capitalism requires statement enforcement, so pretending that government involvement is not capitalist is wrong. I’m also pointing out that the situation would be worse without certain regulations such as anti-trust laws because capitalism naturally converges on monopolies.
I agree government needs to be involved to an extent. My comment was still correct, the issues of medicine do not stem from capitalism. This does not mean capitalism is without flaw
The example you gave doesn’t make sense. First off you confused public trading (company shares are available to the general public) with public ownership (owned by the government i.e. “the public” at large). Johnson and Johnson is publicly traded but the shares are held by private entities. If I buy a share of Johnson and Johnson’s stock, I privately own a piece of Johnson and Johnson.
As for drug patents (and patents in general), the idea is to secure timed exclusivity to sell in the market in exchange for public disclosure of method of invention. If we didn’t have patents, companies would instead treat drug formulations as trade secrets and so they’d hold onto that exclusivity as long as they can keep the formulation a secret or until another entity reinvents the same thing. There are issues with the patent process and especially with private companies benefiting from publicly-funded research while locking up exclusivity and jacking up prices, but those are still problems with capitalism, and they’re still better than just letting the free market completely monopolize the process.
I feel as though you’re also assuming I’m 100% advocating for what I’m describing
i think you’re missing it. Government for as glacial and corrupt and corruptible as it is, is the only buffer from the excess of a free market.
businesses without a guardrail HAVE proven they will sacrifice everything, literally everything in the name of profit.
Oil companies have know for about a century that they are destroying the planet and they are *still * doing it. They fight every regulation that stops them tooth and nail. They buy and shelve technologies that would cut into their profit. Imagine a world where there was no one trying to stop them at all?
That is the proper diagnosis of our system. We have allowed unaccountable immoral groups to control the means of production and they are literally using it to with kill us all.
I’m not missing it, that’s just a different point. I don’t disagree with everything you say here, it just doesn’t really address or refute anything I said. I stuck with the topical example of helpful medicine, which is demonstrably controlled by corporations and the state. Thus, it is not at all capitalist.
businesses without a guardrail HAVE proven they will sacrifice everything, literally everything in the name of profit. Hence why market competition should be encouraged, right? Which businesses are you referring to, public ones or private ones? (they both do it btw, don’t pin it on private)
Reminder: profit does not mean capitalist, market does not mean capitalist. Public bodies can act in and/or control markets, and they can make profit. That’s not a private thing
Okay, let’s do it explain how in a “pure” capitalist society a public body, without the ability to at least nominally use a legal system to guard against collusion and monopoly using the threat of breaking up or shutting down corporations, provide any protection?
Giving them the power to do that makes them just a government by another name.
