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The cure for cancer in an LFC society.

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EthanTexas

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How would, in a laissez-faire capitalist society, one be motivated to make the discovery of, for example, a cure for cancer, when it would be much easier just to continue producing less-than-perfect anti-cancer drugs that, while preserving the life and quality of life of those who take them to any degree, will reel in much larger profits?

My thoughts would be that one who makes such a discovery could, before administering it, as a term of its administration, have that the recipient sign into a long-term payment contract by which they would pay, in installments, perhaps, money to the curer for as long as they remain cancer-free.

How do you suppose things like this would be dealt with? I refer specifically to a cure for cancer, but I'd also like to address any situation in which it would seem that an imperfect job, which would provide job security, would be more profitable. Would the contract/installments idea be viable in order to combat the "job security" mindset with regards to things like this?

Thanks.

By the way, you can call me Ethan. And I am not a troll.

;o

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Because in a LFC society, a company which discovered a cure for cancer would have its rights to that cure protected by the government, and make huge ammounts of money off of it - for its executives, its researchers and especially its sharehorders.

That's why companies and people in general (regular, middle class investors too) would invest enourmous sums of money into research for a cure (far more than is being invested now), and a cure for cancer and AIDS would be found much sooner. As with everything, the free market works better.

You could, the same way, ask why would private companies come up with information technology? We should instead let the government do what's best for us. Well, most of the World did exactly that, not just with information technology, but with food, healthcare, media, everything commercial. And most of the World has become the Third World instead of Paradise, while in the West at least the industries which have not been nationalized are thriving, and we are at least coming up with the IPhone, amazing video games, and stacked supermarkets.

If the healthcare industry were free and its property protected in all Western countries, we would also have cures for most cancers and definitely AIDS. On the other hand, when food production and sale is not free (like Venezuela, Zimbabue), formerly well off countries see their markets and stores empty, and their people often starve.

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How would, in a laissez-faire capitalist society, one be motivated to make the discovery of, for example, a cure for cancer, when it would be much easier just to continue producing less-than-perfect anti-cancer drugs that, while preserving the life and quality of life of those who take them to any degree, will reel in much larger profits?

Do you think drug company executives would be immune to cancer? Would they be satisfied with a shorter lifespan and years of taking drugs? Now ask the same about researchers, doctors, people who aspire to compete with drug companies, etc.

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How do you suppose things like this would be dealt with? I refer specifically to a cure for cancer, but I'd also like to address any situation in which it would seem that an imperfect job, which would provide job security, would be more profitable.

The only way to achieve job security in a capitalist society is through a competitive advantage. Any company that did an "imperfect job" would be sacrificing its competitive advantage.

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I'm not as well studied in Objectivism and economy as others here, but this is the way I see it:

Supermarkets don't just have value products. There's something profitable about selling luxury products. I assumed it would be the same with medicine? I don't know if I'm missing something, but I love the idea of value medicine in a free market.

My guess is the poor (like me) could get very cheap treatment for their ailments the same they can get cheap food, which wouldn't be the very best or the ultimate discovery available, but would still have a decent standard of quality, enough to allow them to get by. And unlike national health services, there would be no waiting lists the same we have no queues to get food rations.

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The only way to achieve job security in a capitalist society is through a competitive advantage. Any company that did an "imperfect job" would be sacrificing its competitive advantage.

Say, a company is particularly advanced in its medical technology. No other company is very close to catching up with it. Rather than release the newest and best cure it has available for a given disease (bearing in mind that if it were to do so, the cost of older, inferior cures would drop), it chooses, rationally, to, instead, withhold the new cure, and continue to sell the inferior cure, because there's more money in it.

I don't presume that executives would be immune to a disease, though I think it's reasonable to say that if they were to contract such a disease as that they're withholding the cure or treatment for, they'd have it administered to themselves in secrecy. I wouldn't presume, either, that people would be satisfied with shorter lifespans and inferior medicine; just that it wouldn't be very hard for a company to withhold its findings.

It should be noted that I'm not arguing against a laissez-faire capitalist system, or that I don't think it's the best. Rather, I'm just learning about why it's the best, and trying to figure if there's anything that could be wrong with it, and how certain things would work out.

I'm not as well studied in Objectivism and economy as others here, but this is the way I see it:

Supermarkets don't just have value products. There's something profitable about selling luxury products. I assumed it would be the same with medicine? I don't know if I'm missing something, but I love the idea of value medicine in a free market.

My guess is the poor (like me) could get very cheap treatment for their ailments the same they can get cheap food, which wouldn't be the very best or the ultimate discovery available, but would still have a decent standard of quality, enough to allow them to get by. And unlike national health services, there would be no waiting lists the same we have no queues to get food rations.

I like this idea.

Edited by EthanTexas
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Maybe you should start with something more basic Ethan, like what motivates people. You seem to be caught up in the most vile propaganda of the socialists, according to which businessmen are evil, vile creatures who seek to get rich at the expense of everyone else.

As long as you think that Capitalism is a zero sum game, and the way to become rich is to wrong others, you can't possibly like capitalism. (liking such a system would be quite perverse) If you were to study Objectivism, or read Atlas Shrugged, you will learn that Capitalism is just the system in which people trade and work together freely, without being allowed to initiate force against one another. In such a system, money is a token of appreciation for a service you provide to your fellow man, so no company that provides a lesser service could ever get ahead of other, more honest companies, in the long run. The company selling the real cure will inevitably wipe its competition out, because in the end the customers are the ones who decide which company they want to pay.

You also need to understand that complex cures don't fall from the sky. The people who will discover them have to be motivated to do so-good men tend to be succesful, because they apply the same morality to their profession that they apply to their personal lives and to their politics: they are responsible for their own actions and lives, and hold others responsible, as well, with the same objectivity.

I'm not as well studied in Objectivism and economy as others here, but this is the way I see it:

Supermarkets don't just have value products. There's something profitable about selling luxury products. I assumed it would be the same with medicine? I don't know if I'm missing something, but I love the idea of value medicine in a free market.

My guess is the poor (like me) could get very cheap treatment for their ailments the same they can get cheap food, which wouldn't be the very best or the ultimate discovery available, but would still have a decent standard of quality, enough to allow them to get by. And unlike national health services, there would be no waiting lists the same we have no queues to get food rations.

That's not really how it works: a new development stays expensive for an ever shorter time. As soon as the thing is developed, competing companies now go into a frezy about who can make it more cost efficient and cheaper, and most often in a matter of months these days, the price drops exponentially. Look at the price of the Iphone, (or any new computer that at first costs several thousand dollars). No company makes computers only for the rich, or has a separate line of computers for the rich and the poor.

The reason for value medicine often has, I think, more to do with the countless regulations than free market forces.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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So, what you're saying is, there's absolutely no profit motive for a cure for cancer?

No, I'm just asking the question.

Think insurance. A health insurance company has a strong incentive to cure their customers with a simple shot rather than to pay for their medicine for years. They also have the resources to finance such research.

That's what I was looking for. Thank you.

Maybe you should start with something more basic Ethan, like what motivates people. You seem to be caught up in the most vile propaganda of the socialists, according to which businessmen are evil, vile creatures who seek to get rich at the expense of everyone else.

I'm not. I'm just asking a question. The good people here are better-versed in economics than I am.

As long as you think that Capitalism is a zero sum game, and the way to become rich is to wrong others, you can't possibly like capitalism. (liking such a system would be quite perverse) If you were to study Objectivism, or read Atlas Shrugged, you will learn that Capitalism is just the system in which people trade and work together freely, without being allowed to initiate force against one another. In such a system, money is a token of appreciation for a service you provide to your fellow man, so no company that provides a lesser service could ever get ahead of other, more honest companies, in the long run. The company selling the real cure will inevitably wipe its competition out, because in the end the customers are the ones who decide which company they want to pay.

I don't think it's a zero-sum game, nor that the way to become rich is to wrong others. I've read Atlas Shrugged and I've been looking into Objectivism.

What about monopolies, though? Some people would say they're a problem. I don't actually think they would be a problem, but I'd rather understand why that is, especially when they're typically reviled.

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The motivation to cure cancer is MASSIVE. If the government would get out of medicine, free enterprise would big time improve the quality of medicine, and it would keep on improving. We'd likely have a cure for cancer now if not for the government's overwhelming obstacles.

Just to be clear, to get a drug through the FDA approval process takes hundreds of millions of dollars and something like 20 years. Remove that obstacle, and you'd see much lower cost drugs and much better drugs. The reason they'd be lower cost is obvious. The reason they'd be better is because pharmaceutical companies are not out to kill us, they are out to save lives (that's how they make money), and they can only save lives by producing quality drugs.

And, btw, if the entire medical industry were completely free, it would be much cheaper, of much higher quality and would continually improve. Furthermore, virtually everyone would get treatment.

I've heard it say that banking is the most regulated industry in America. This could be true, but my guess is medicine is even more regulated than banking. The government is killing people. It's virtually murdering them by stealth with the pretense that it's helping.

What I'm doing is turning this issue around. The fact is that in a government controlled economy you'd find no cure, because there is no motivation. And, when medicine was freer in America, it was far and away of the best quality in the world.

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What about monopolies, though? Some people would say they're a problem. I don't actually think they would be a problem, but I'd rather understand why that is, especially when they're typically reviled.

What about them? Monopolies are almost impossible to exist in a LFC system other than on a temporary basis (ie. if you happen to the be first one to invent something new or first one to open a store in a given area, obviously you'd have a temporary monopoly.)

If one has obtained a single-seller status through peaceful competition in a marketplace and happens to be better than anything else why would that be a bad thing? There would be no way to prevent another peaceful market participant from entering the industry other than the use of force.

Observe that all major monopolies in history are a direct result of government. The State is the cause of monopolies, and a market with competition will always beat out a monopoly or a cartel. Government itself is the largest coercive socialist monopoly holder in existence, where are the same people saying that's bad?

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The motivation to cure cancer is MASSIVE. If the government would get out of medicine, free enterprise would big time improve the quality of medicine, and it would keep on improving. We'd likely have a cure for cancer now if not for the government's overwhelming obstacles.

Just to be clear, to get a drug through the FDA approval process takes hundreds of millions of dollars and something like 20 years. Remove that obstacle, and you'd see much lower cost drugs and much better drugs. The reason they'd be lower cost is obvious. The reason they'd be better is because pharmaceutical companies are not out to kill us, they are out to save lives (that's how they make money), and they can only save lives by producing quality drugs.

And, btw, if the entire medical industry were completely free, it would be much cheaper, of much higher quality and would continually improve. Furthermore, virtually everyone would get treatment.

I've heard it say that banking is the most regulated industry in America. This could be true, but my guess is medicine is even more regulated than banking. The government is killing people. It's virtually murdering them by stealth with the pretense that it's helping.

What I'm doing is turning this issue around. The fact is that in a government controlled economy you'd find no cure, because there is no motivation. And, when medicine was freer in America, it was far and away of the best quality in the world.

Interesting.

What do you suppose the Objectivist answer to overpopulation would be?

That between a free market with a gold-standard currency, no welfare programs, and the availability of Green Revolution technology and medicine, etc., the population would eventually stabilize over time at a manageable number?

Thanks to everyone for the help.

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What do you suppose the Objectivist answer to overpopulation would be?
What's the question? :) Or, rather, the answer [not an "objectivist" one, but a rational one nevertheless] is that overpopulation is not a problem. Human beings produce their wealth; they do not simple gather it. In the world as a whole, no resource is so limited as to cause a serious and general problem. Even Malthus was proven wrong, even though he lived at a time when men had significantly less ability to create wealth.

Check out Julian Simon's books "Ultimate Resource-2". There are online versions of Simon's books here.

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Interesting.

What do you suppose the Objectivist answer to overpopulation would be?

That between a free market with a gold-standard currency, no welfare programs, and the availability of Green Revolution technology and medicine, etc., the population would eventually stabilize over time at a manageable number?

Thanks to everyone for the help.

Right, children are more expensive in industrialized nations so people are more likely to have less kids.

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Interesting.

What do you suppose the Objectivist answer to overpopulation would be?

That between a free market with a gold-standard currency, no welfare programs, and the availability of Green Revolution technology and medicine, etc., the population would eventually stabilize over time at a manageable number?

Thanks to everyone for the help.

Your wording "over population" is loaded. I know you don't mean to do this, because it's common parlance today. I say it's loaded, because the word "over" indicates that there is some problem.

Two basic points on this:

1> The more people in a free society the better, because then you will have more productive and inventive minds at work. I think you'll find that free countries with very high population densities are doing well.

2> The population of Western societies is not increasing all that rapidly. Apparently it's the third world that is out of control in that way.

Point 1 is the important point, however.

Edited by Thales
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Your wording "over population" is loaded. I know you don't mean to do this, because it's common parlance today. I say it's loaded, because the word "over" indicates that there is some problem.

Two basic points on this:

1> The more people in a free society the better, because then you will have more productive and inventive minds at work. I think you'll find that free countries with very high population densities are doing well.

2> The population of Western societies is not increasing all that rapidly. Apparently it's the third world that is out of control in that way.

Point 1 is the important point, however.

I meant the world population. The world population is projected to increase by several billion before 2050. Some people say that that's a problem, especially since there are regions with terrible food shortages. I'm sure that's largely due just to socialist regimes keeping out a free market that would encourage better distribution of food, but when those populations get into the free market, will there be enough food for everyone? And will it be quality food? And what will happen to human evolution? Will it be guided primarily by the mind, and the body may just sort of be neglected? Is genetic engineering a viable answer to this?

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I meant the world population. The world population is projected to increase by several billion before 2050. Some people say that that's a problem, especially since there are regions with terrible food shortages. I'm sure that's largely due just to socialist regimes keeping out a free market that would encourage better distribution of food, but when those populations get into the free market, will there be enough food for everyone? And will it be quality food?

The US produces way more food than it can consume. Subsidies go more towards keeping land owners from growing food and driving down prices. That affects the food supply in poorer countries, BTW. That's part of the problem. Other subsidies go towards propping up food prices, which also affect what food poorer countries can import.

With a free market that would go away. Also there are more ways to grow food than to simply use up all the fertile land in sight (a lot of which remains unexploited in some places. Look up how Israeli farmers expanded food production into the desert, for example, or how the Dutch reclaimed fertile land from the sea. Aside from that there's a nascent hydroponics industry and other kinds of, so to speak, artificial farms. Things like vertical farms ( tall buildings where each floor has different soil for growing different things), free-floating fish farms (large cages underwater where farmed fish are kept safe from predators), and many more ideas. If you want to get more outlandish, it might be cheaper to produce food in the Moon's north pole (year-round sunlight) and ship it here. It's a big soalr system and we're only using parts of one planet yet.

Oh, and I dind't even mention transgenics.

And what will happen to human evolution? Will it be guided primarily by the mind, and the body may just sort of be neglected? Is genetic engineering a viable answer to this?

A viable answer to what?

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A viable answer to what?

I don't know about you, but I'd consider it to be a problem that, as the human body's strength and athleticism becomes depended on less and less, it'll decline, and may even be selected against. I'd much rather live in a world where humans are becoming physically stronger with the help of technology than a world in which they're becoming physically weaker because of technology.

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I don't know about you, but I'd consider it to be a problem that, as the human body's strength and athleticism becomes depended on less and less, it'll decline, and may even be selected against. I'd much rather live in a world where humans are becoming physically stronger with the help of technology than a world in which they're becoming physically weaker because of technology.

So exercise or lift weights or something. What's stopping you?

If you want to genetically enhance yourself, go right ahead. I don't see what this has to do with LFC.

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Your wording "over population" is loaded. I know you don't mean to do this, because it's common parlance today. I say it's loaded, because the word "over" indicates that there is some problem.

Two basic points on this:

1> The more people in a free society the better, because then you will have more productive and inventive minds at work. I think you'll find that free countries with very high population densities are doing well.

2> The population of Western societies is not increasing all that rapidly. Apparently it's the third world that is out of control in that way.

Point 1 is the important point, however.

Does not change the fact, that there must be a certain point, where the earth can no longer support more humans. So in the long run we have 2 options, assuming world-population will eventually hit that point.

a) Somehow actively change the trend by raising awareness for the problem

:P Do nothing and "wait" until the number of humans on earth has decreased because of the problems that where caused by the overpopulation (I guess that is a scenario where the word is used correctly)

I think this is one of the issues that is raised when the problem of very long term sustainability is discussed. Questions like

"Can a LFC work without (industrial) growth"?

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Does not change the fact, that there must be a certain point, where the earth can no longer support more humans.

I know gravity is a bitch, but you're definitely overestimating it, unless you're talking about enough humans piled on top of each other, to form heaps many miles high into the sky, and cause the Earth to stop supporting us and cave in on itself.

Of course, I have taken the literal route for a reason: that is the only way in which the Earth is supporting us (by preventing us from falling towards its center, due to gravity). Other than that, we are supporting ourselves, using resources available to us both here and in outer space. And we could do that, no matter how many humans there are, barring the scenario I described. All we'd need to do (once hundreds of billions of people have populated the Earth's surface), is build up. There's no shortage of energy from the Sun, or minerals from Earth and other objects in space.

Not that any of this is relevant, since there's no reason to think people will continue to grow in numbers forever. Quite the opposite:

Does not change the fact, that there must be a certain point, where the earth can no longer support more humans. So in the long run we have 2 options, assuming world-population will eventually hit that point.

The best option is to advocate that all the nations of the World turn into free, Capitalist societies. Then, we won't have to assume anything, because no free, Capitalist (or mostly Capitalist) country has a population that's growing in numbers. People are free to do things other than procreate.

Not that there's any reason to assume your assumption there, under current circumstances either. There is no reason to think that the Earth's population will reach a point of "overpopulation".

"Can a LFC work without (industrial) growth"?

Industrial growth is an unavoidable consequence of LFC, not the other way around, so the question makes no sense, even if you were to define "work".

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Does not change the fact, that there must be a certain point, where the earth can no longer support more humans. So in the long run we have 2 options, assuming world-population will eventually hit that point.

a) Somehow actively change the trend by raising awareness for the problem

:P Do nothing and "wait" until the number of humans on earth has decreased because of the problems that where caused by the overpopulation (I guess that is a scenario where the word is used correctly)

I think this is one of the issues that is raised when the problem of very long term sustainability is discussed. Questions like

"Can a LFC work without (industrial) growth"?

I love it when people come up with "there are only two possibility" fables. What on earth makes you think that? For every single 'calamity' to have befallen the human race there have always been a myriad of choices available, and solutions implemented most not even dreamed of till the crisis is actually realized.

Personally I say bring on the population, another hundred thousand or so geniuses will have this "problem" licked before most of the planet even looks up from the TV.

It's starting to sound like an X-files convention on this topic with all the conspiracy/fantastic hypothetical's being trotted out...

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No company makes computers only for the rich, or has a separate line of computers for the rich and the poor.

This is silly. There are a number of companies that don't sell bargain-basement products and I've never seen a computer company that *didn't* have a variety of products with different price points. Cancer treatment works the same way. If you're extremely wealthy, you can afford the tests that let them catch the cancer early and do the less-obnoxious treatments with a better chance of success. But that's not to say that the non-wealthy can't get treatment. Very often they can and do, by doing things like volunteering for drug trials or using older medications.

If anything, long-range research will continue to be funded under LFC because a lot of people like doing it and they will harass someone into paying for it.

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