A Modest Proposal: Limiting the Franchise

[Crazed Rabbit]

aka, I never even said anything postive nor negative against patents, my "moan" was reminding you that they exist. Then you attacked me reminding you they existed, saying I am hurting the poor companies, when it was you who said "what's to stop companies from simply producing the drug as well?"

Is this the end of the free market ideology for Crazed Rabbit? The distressed he showed as he basically attacked his own question? Will this expose the other hypocrisies in his logic and he will turn to the light? Tune in next time.

Don't be ridiculous. You proposed a extremely simplistic scenario. Changing the scenario will of course change my answer. Making it realistic - like adding patents - means getting rid of the nonsense about some druggist making some miracle drug by changing some material. Making a drug requires a large company, years of research, design, and testing, and then years to get government approval.

Patents are part of the free market, like copyrights on books. And the free market effects monopoly pricing as well - driving the cost of a product down to a price that leads to the most profitability overall, not for the most profit per individual drug sold. The druggist in your example doesn't understand the free market. A savvy company might practice stratified pricing - charging more for those willing to pay for it and less for those who aren't able to pay as much. One real life example is Australia's high video game prices.

You say there's a gap in my logic? Can you answer me this; what would happen if you took away patents and put price controls on all drugs? Almost no new drugs. That's no mere hole in your logic, it's an abyss. It represents a fundamental ignorance about how taking incentives away will stop people from creating products and inanely assumes that such creation will always continue and companies can just be forced to sell products for cheaper with no consequence on supply.

To counter Beskar's example you even said other companies would start producing the drug and the price would go down via free market, but that is not possible with patents, except if they can find a different drug with similar effects.
So at first you go and praise the free market and then you say patents are necessary because on a free market the companies couldn't survive.
So how could the companies solve this problem on a free market or does the free market fail whenever reasearch and developent are involved?
Maybe there should be a maximum length for patents, like one or two years, so the companies can get their R&D costs back and then the free market takes over?

Patents for drugs last 20 years. But since companies apply for patents while developing the drugs, and since testing and government approval takes so long, the applicable length is less than 15 years.

I don't want some one randomly born from a family of interbreeding to have the at least the equivalent of 3,135 votes compared to my one, even though I can make a far superior choice than they could.

Lol, it's like racism, but with class instead of race.

Why think in terms of votes? Votes have no value in and of themselves, instead they are simply the means by which we gain our representation. Therefore, instead of dealing with the mechanics of voting, my system tackles representation more directly, giving every person an equal voice in parliament. You still have not adressed the issue whereby the interests of 30% of the population will be wholly made redundant in your system.

I don't like the idea of dividing up classes and giving each one an equal share in government. First, it goes against one man, one vote. Secondly, it assumes that class is the best divisor of society. Third, I'm focusing on limiting the franchise for those who pay more to the IRS than they receive in checks, food stamps, etc., from the government.

CR

[jabarto]

Patents are part of the free market, like copyrights on books. And the free market effects monopoly pricing as well - driving the cost of a product down to a price that leads to the most profitability overall, not for the most profit per individual drug sold. The druggist in your example doesn't understand the free market. A savvy company might practice stratified pricing - charging more for those willing to pay for it and less for those who aren't able to pay as much. One real life example is Australia's high video game prices.

You say there's a gap in my logic? Can you answer me this; what would happen if you took away patents and put price controls on all drugs? Almost no new drugs. That's no mere hole in your logic, it's an abyss. It represents a fundamental ignorance about how taking incentives away will stop people from creating products and inanely assumes that such creation will always continue and companies can just be forced to sell products for cheaper with no consequence on supply.

Forgot to touch on this earlier. All of the above is dead wrong.

First of all, a patent is a state-granted monpoly. That's the exact opposite of the free market. Second, drugs are dirt cheap to produce. There was a study that showed that antidepressants (among many, many other drugs) cost fractions of a penny per tablet. The reason they're expensive is that they get marked up 500,000% (I'm not making that number up) because the drug companies can charge whatever they want. Know why? Because of patents!

Finally, you're correct that patents offer an incentive for innovation. What you don't seem to get is that they're not the only mechanism that does this. The government can do this (surprise, surprise), as can private institutions that already exist.

[Beskar]

Lol, it's like racism, but with class instead of race.

Class is a social construct. Being an aristocrat is not based on any merit, test for superiority, or any effort. Someone by stating their are an aristocrat is de-facto stating they are superior to me. I am saying, I could very well be more qualified through qualifications and experience than they are, except they are meant to be apparently better than me, because of their birth.

Nothing like racism. An aristocrat they are are better than all the plebs is akin to racism. It would like having a 'black' university professor, who is superior through every means of test, in qualifications, experience, usefulness to society, etc, then have some 'white' who is none of that going "lulz, I was born white, therefore I am better than you!!!".

Ah, mon petit Robespierre, that turned out well the last time. And it is telling, just like before, that it comes down to you alone permitting who lives and who dies.

My apologises for the expression. To be fair, I would just strip them of their aristocracy (their unjustified elite status), not actually bring a return of the guillotine, except to use it on the ribbons tying them to the powers of the state.