The small print is what kills you.
Now normally in a movie I root for the good guys. It is the base nature of myself that I want good to win and evil to lose. Sometimes what is defined as evil is vague and hard to define.
An example is the movie “Wall Street” with Martin Sheen and Michael Douglas. Michael Douglas played the character of “Gordon Gekko”. Now I like the subtle usage of a cold blooded lizard as his last name. In it he gives a speech that I consider one of the best several lines in a movie ever spoken.
“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, greed–for the lack of a better word–is good. Greed is right; greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all its forms–greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge–has marked the upward surge of mankind, and greed–you mark my words– will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.”
Greed creates profit and direction, and yet today it is used as a four letter word by so many. Ones who are oblivious to the fact that they normally work for companies whose greed for profits keep them in a job with all of the benefits that come with it.
So after watching that movie I came to the conclusion that it was a simply sad attempt to attack something that works so well for this country, capitalism and the greed.
So when I was reading this post on The Free Liberal about the pirate like nature of Brazil and pharmaceutical drugs one thing jumped out at me and like so often today I ended up mad at our own government.
Brazil – endeavoring to become a socialist paradise under its current president, former union leader and avowed communist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – provides a HillaryCare-type of system in which the government provides free HIV treatments to all its citizens. And socialized health care of that kind is, naturally, expensive.
So on June 1st, Brazil’s lower house approved a bill suspending patents on AIDS-fighting drugs. The bill’s sponsor declared, “Constitutional protection for patents is not absolute, but subordinate to social interests.” And a deputy for the Workers’ (of the World, Unite!) Party added, “Patents have to be suspended if they’re harming public health.” Both lines could easily have been lifted right off the pages of “Atlas Shrugged.”
So they have decided that international laws are in the way so to heck with them. If a company knows that whatever it makes will be stolen by other governments then why will it invest in it? It wouldn’t waste it’s time, and because of that greed people are alive.
Now piracy aside it is what our government did that bothers me so much.
Of course, like every good crook, the Brazilians have found a way to justify and rationalize their piracy. See, there’s a clause in the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement, which both Brazil and the U.S. have signed, commonly known as TRIPS. As Drug Industry Daily explains, TRIPS “allows a developing country to temporarily ignore drug patents to bring affordable drugs to its population in times of health emergencies.”
So what does it say in the TRIPS section of the WTO charter that allows that? I went and found this about the rights that a patent holder has and international eminent domain.
Article 31
Other Use Without Authorization of the Right HolderWhere the law of a Member allows for other use (7) of the subject matter of a patent without the authorization of the right holder, including use by the government or third parties authorized by the government, the following provisions shall be respected:
……
(b) such use may only be permitted if, prior to such use, the proposed user has made efforts to obtain authorization from the right holder on reasonable commercial terms and conditions and that such efforts have not been successful within a reasonable period of time.
Sounds like eminent domain. They will make some proposals, and if you do not like it they take it anyways. Our government has just opened the door for foreign countries to have eminent domain over our patents, our ideas. Mental theft using the power of the state.
So why should a company invest years and millions into something earth shaking when the WTO laws would allow other countries to “borrow” it if the social need exists? Greed is movement even if you do not like the word, legal theft by a government is a death sentence for everyone not saved by items not invented because of TRIPS
June 13th, 2005 at 4:49 pm
Your comprehension of what motivates those who invent life-saving medicines and technologies is no better than your comprehension of the word “greed”. Your rant would have more teeth if you showed some comprehension of the centuries of cultural wisdom, in the Christian tradition and virtually every other major religious and secular tradition, that casts greed as a sin.
June 13th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
Hellbent, I’m gonna have to go with gunner here and state that greed is a helluva motivation for technological advancement. I’m sure if I invented a cure for cancer, my first thought would be: Cool! Just cured cancer. Number 2 would be: Cool! I’m rich, bitch*.
*With apologies to Dave Chapelle.
June 13th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
There is nothing free market about a patent. Why shouldn’t someone be able to make a copy of what I’ve created and compete with me on price? Patents are the government getting into the private sector by limiting competition. However, there is a greater good that patents provide which is simply the incentive to do research and development. Having said that, there have to be limits on how long a patent can last and what not. The equilibrium point is a moving target and reasonable people will have different thoughts as to where that is. Brazil is playing by the rules.
June 14th, 2005 at 7:50 am
Brazil is most certainly not playing by the rules. Economic transactions are mutually beneficial. You buy a carton of milk for $2 because you would rather have the milk than your $2. That alternative is going out and milking your own cow. The grocer sells it to you because he would rather have your $2 than the milk. That is a mutually beneficial transaction that illustrates what capitalism is built upon.
Without patent protection and a profit motive, transactions cease to be mutually beneficial. You want to sell something for one price, but the government comes along and forces you to sell it cheaper, that’s legalized theft. The same holds true for allowing other producers to copy your invention and sell it cheaper than you can (because they don’t have all the expensive R&D invested in it).
Without profit, and without patent protections capitalism essentially breaks down. Even when there is incentive to invent things “for the common good” there aren’t any investors willing to fund the inventions. I’m not about to invest in biotech stocks when I know there’s no profit in it. Stockholders just aren’t in the business of losing money. And without that money, the biotechs couldn’t invent new drugs and treatments EVEN IF they wanted to.
June 14th, 2005 at 9:40 am
Uncle, you apparently don’t know the definition of greed either, or maybe you just don’t care. You’ve got a simplistic economic ideal to bash people over the head with, why bother with details like what words mean?
When are you greedy motherfuckers going to cure cancer anyway? It’s not like there’s any shortage of rich people with cancer you could take advantage of. Or maybe the problem is that it really does work like in Uncle’s hypothetical: the invention of the cure happens randomly, then the greed kicks in. Seriously Uncle, did greed motivate you to discover the cure, or did discovering the cure motivate you to be greedy?
June 14th, 2005 at 9:50 am
I’m fully aware of what greed means and it’s a helluva motivational tool. And my simplistic economic ideal seems to work. In fact, it’s not even cancer but think of technological advances, like TiVo or the automobile or TeeVee or Al Gore’s Internets (particularly, the subsequent advances in Internet technology). If the motivation for money wasn’t there, do you think TiVo would have been invented?
“When are you greedy motherfuckers going to cure cancer anyway?”
Dunno. When are you non-greedy, holier than thou folks going to get off the horse and stop expecting us greedy motherfuckers to do everything and then bitch because we want to be compensated for it? 🙂 It will be some guy motivated to do so for either the benefit of public good or cash; or both. After all, the latter is why these big pharmaceutical companies are in business.
” the invention of the cure happens randomly”
If I did it, it would be random because I don’t know anything about biochemistry or medicine.
“did greed motivate you to discover the cure, or did discovering the cure motivate you to be greedy?”
Good question but in my case irrelevant as it would be dumb luck if I cured cancer. Chicken, egg? Who cares as long as we have the cure. And omelets and wings.
June 14th, 2005 at 10:48 am
You have in life great people with a desire to do good. Salk is one fine example. People like that can only do so much on their own. Now companies desire top make a profit and they, with great minds, work to create something great.
Now ask yourself this. If a company knows that the bigger the investment and the greater the result the higher the chance of it being taken away for social reasons what will they do? Likely not invest in the product. They are in the business of making money, greed.
TRIPS guts the reason that companies do things. We all suffer.
True pure eminent domain on a internetional scale of your ideas. Thanks WTO.
June 14th, 2005 at 11:32 am
Hellbent, you must be looking at a different Christian tradition than I am. I was always taught that it was love of money that was a sin, not greed. The sin is in the excess, not the existance. Just like gluttony and lust (another one that has been mis-re-defined.)
As for patents, I recognize that they are a created right, not an inherent one, but this is the problem with created rights. It is hard to justify making them extranational. If I were a pharmacutical maker, I would be working hard to figure out a way to keep my products as trade secrets and not worry about patents (like maybe by developing a system that destroys the active ingredients when someone tries to analyze it.)
June 14th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Brazil is most certainly not playing by the rules.
re-read the post..Brazil is doing what its legally allowed to do.
June 14th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
The sin is in the excess
No shit, Sherlock. Have any of you even bothered to look up the definition of “greed”? You equate greed with the desire to earn a profit, so obviously you haven’t looked up the definition. I don’t have any problem with people being compensated for effort and innovation, nor with people being motivated by the prospect of making money. Greed is a different thing.
I also don’t need to have your simplistic economic theory explained to me over and over. I understood the first time. In fact, I may understand the market principle better than you, because I recognize that ideals have to be applied to real-world markets on a case-by-case basis. A dying person seeking medicine is not the same as a consumer looking for a good deal on milk. It’s your one-size-fits-all approach to economics that I object to. I’m not sure any of you are interested in discussing reality, just your sacred market ideology.
Phelps, your secrecy solution tells me you have no appreciation of how much colloboration is involved in understanding diseases and developing medicines. Do any of you realize how much investment in biotech you have already made as a taxpayer? Private investment only drives a portion of medical research. Most of it is done in universities and funded by grants from NIH and NSF.
After you look up the definition of greed, you should churn all the public investments and public science through your simplistic private-market equations.
June 14th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Dude, seriously. How many times can you ask if we know what greed is? Of course, we do. I didn’t say greed is the desire to make a profit. Just that greed motivates people, and it does.
June 14th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Here’s the definitions of “greed” offered so far:
They are in the business of making money, greed.
I was always taught that it was love of money that was a sin, not greed. The sin is in the excess
Neither of these jibes with the dictionary definition.
You claim that you’ve only defined greed as a motivator, which is true, and it also provides no evidence that you can tell the difference between greed and any other motivator, ambition, for example. You and gunner have both admitted that medical research can be motivated by better intentions than greed, sort of a back-door admission that greed may not be so good, tempered by being too prideful to admit you’re wrong.
In any case, it’s probably best that you nitpick rather than confront the bigger issues I’ve raised that you don’t want to deal with — the failure of greed to cure cancer after all these decades, the public and charitable investment in medical research, the collaborative nature of medical research that confounds concepts of proprietary ownership, and the fundamental difference between medical markets with desperate consumers and fair markets of mutual benefit. Ignore all those valid points. Greed is good. So is pride.
June 14th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Nitpick? You’re the one nitpicking over the definition of greed, which i never addressed because i assume people know what it means. And in gunner’s context, it seems to be an anti-euphemism for profit motives.
“provides no evidence that you can tell the difference between greed and any other motivator, ambition, for example”
Huh? I said my first response would be ‘cool, i cured cancer,’ think that indicates my belief in other motivations. However, your complete lack of acknowledging that ‘greed’ or ‘profit’ or whatever can motivate indicates that you think it is unimportant as well (i mean since we’re drawing conclusions based on what’s not said).
And maybe i’m missing your larger point. I thought it was that ‘greed’ isn’t the desire for profit and that there are other motivations to success/curing cancer/whatever. And i don’t disagree with either but have qualified that greed as a motivational tool can have its advantages.