If Marx turns out to be right...

[Meryuma]

NiS,

1. Competition after 25-30 years is very different from competition now.
2. Is occupational licensing, FDA-style stuff, etc really international?

[Hydesland]

Health care would be far more affordable without licensing and patents, due to greatly increased competition lowering prices.

Assuming this doesn't drastically and radically reduce the amount of healthcare goods and drastically reduce any incentive to do decades in healthcare research without being able to feasibly get a return from such.

[Meryuma]

Health care would be far more affordable without licensing and patents, due to greatly increased competition lowering prices.

Assuming this doesn't drastically and radically reduce the amount of healthcare goods and drastically reduce any incentive to do decades in healthcare research without being able to feasibly get a return from such.

Why would not having patents prevent one from getting a return?

[Hydesland]

Why would not having patents prevent one from getting a return?

It's very easy to reproduce the large majority of pharmaceutical products. Companies will enter, copy the product and sell it without having to have done any of the research, and continue to enter the market until profit margins are zero (unless you don't believe in competitive markets, which would completely undermine your argument). Since the company deciding on whether to invest an extraordinary amount of funds and time in research to produce the good will be facing effectively zero profit margins as a result, there is no incentive to go engage in the research in the first place.

[SaintB]

If Marx turns out to be right...

I believe he was left...

[Coccygia]

If Marx turns out to be right, I shall crap my pants. (I think my pants are safe BTW.)

[Alien Space Bats]

Would I be declared an enemy of the state or mentally incompetant?

I'm betting on a date with a syringe of Thorazine...

[Meryuma]

Why would not having patents prevent one from getting a return?

It's very easy to reproduce the large majority of pharmaceutical products. Companies will enter, copy the product and sell it without having to have done any of the research, and continue to enter the market until profit margins are zero (unless you don't believe in competitive markets, which would completely undermine your argument). Since the company deciding on whether to invest an extraordinary amount of funds and time in research to produce the good will be facing effectively zero profit margins as a result, there is no incentive to go engage in the research in the first place.

What makes you think they wouldn't respond to lowered prices by competitors?

[Nazis in Space]

1. Competition after 25-30 years is very different from competition now.

It really isn't. You'll find that the vast majority of drugs sold are rather older than that. Acetylsalicylic acid & acetaminophen are a century and half a century old, respectively, to name but two examples. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of medications are new, for funky, not entirely curable diseases like cancer and shit - the vast majority exists to relieve the common cold and other such nuisances.

[Nazis in Space]

It's very easy to reproduce the large majority of pharmaceutical products. Companies will enter, copy the product and sell it without having to have done any of the research, and continue to enter the market until profit margins are zero (unless you don't believe in competitive markets, which would completely undermine your argument). Since the company deciding on whether to invest an extraordinary amount of funds and time in research to produce the good will be facing effectively zero profit margins as a result, there is no incentive to go engage in the research in the first place.

What makes you think they wouldn't respond to lowered prices by competitors?

Them going bankrupt because they invested a shitton of money their competition didn't have to invest?

Out of curiosity, ever taken an economcis class?

[Hydesland]

What makes you think they wouldn't respond to lowered prices by competitors?

I didn't say they wouldn't.

[Meryuma]

People wouldn't have to devote R&D time to finding unpatented, patenable technologies, thus reducing the cost of research, since they wouldn't have patents to work around.

[The Murtunian Tribes]

I think Nicksylvania said it best that if such a thing happened, "the socialist infants must be strangled in their cribs" and if it can't be stopped, humanity must be wiped out.

[Meryuma]

I think Nicksylvania said it best that if such a thing happened, "the socialist infants must be strangled in their cribs" and if it can't be stopped, humanity must be wiped out.

Finally, an on-topic post. I was getting a little sick of discussing things that have absolutely nothing to do with Marx in a Marx thread.

[Vetalia]

If it works, it works...I'm much more pragmatic than ideological.

[Sibirsky]

I think Nicksylvania said it best that if such a thing happened, "the socialist infants must be strangled in their cribs" and if it can't be stopped, humanity must be wiped out.

How can you tell the socialist infants and the capitalist infants apart?

[Staenwald]

Socialism would only work continuously if every country is also a socialist. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to compete in the world if everyone is getting richer by the minute and a socialist country stays poor the whole time. Take China before they allowed trade and after they allowed trade. Where are they now?

so...socialist countries would only exist because nobody would have a chance to realise what kind of life they are being cheated out of?

[Staenwald]

I think Nicksylvania said it best that if such a thing happened, "the socialist infants must be strangled in their cribs" and if it can't be stopped, humanity must be wiped out.

How can you tell the socialist infants and the capitalist infants apart?

apparently they can tell if a baby will be hetero or homosexual when their older according to their eye contact..anything is possible now....no you most likely can't tell the difference.

[Natapoc]

I think Nicksylvania said it best that if such a thing happened, "the socialist infants must be strangled in their cribs" and if it can't be stopped, humanity must be wiped out.

How can you tell the socialist infants and the capitalist infants apart?

Place a marijuana plant and a dollar bill in the crib. If the child grabs the marijuana plant it's a socialist. Kill it!

If it grabs the dollar it's a thief for stealing your dollar. Cut it's hand off!

[Sibirsky]

How can you tell the socialist infants and the capitalist infants apart?

Place a marijuana plant and a dollar bill in the crib. If the child grabs the marijuana plant it's a socialist. Kill it!

If it grabs the dollar it's a thief for stealing your dollar. Cut it's hand off!

So we end up with a bunch of handless babies.

I propose waiting until they're teens.

[Natapoc]

Place a marijuana plant and a dollar bill in the crib. If the child grabs the marijuana plant it's a socialist. Kill it!

If it grabs the dollar it's a thief for stealing your dollar. Cut it's hand off!

So we end up with a bunch of handless babies.

I propose waiting until they're teens.

The babies that refused the welfare handout (the dollar) and also refused the marijuana would keep their hands.

[Staenwald]

How can you tell the socialist infants and the capitalist infants apart?

Place a marijuana plant and a dollar bill in the crib. If the child grabs the marijuana plant it's a socialist. Kill it!

If it grabs the dollar it's a thief for stealing your dollar. Cut it's hand off!

we don't use sharia law here...god...

[Sibirsky]

Socialism would only work continuously if every country is also a socialist. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to compete in the world if everyone is getting richer by the minute and a socialist country stays poor the whole time. Take China before they allowed trade and after they allowed trade. Where are they now?

so...socialist countries would only exist because nobody would have a chance to realise what kind of life they are being cheated out of?

There is some degree of truth to that. If you're not allowed to leave your nation, and don't have much foreign influence as far as media or whatever then whatever it is you experience in your home nation is "normal" at least in your perception.

Watching the Soviets' reactions to visiting stores in the West in the early 1990s was quite fascinating. Some people freaked out. I mean literally went nuts. At least temporarily. I was prepared for the abundance though having been born a capitalist in the wrong nation.

[Sibirsky]

So we end up with a bunch of handless babies.

I propose waiting until they're teens.

The babies that refused the welfare handout (the dollar) and also refused the marijuana would keep their hands.

Hmmm....

[Staenwald]

so...socialist countries would only exist because nobody would have a chance to realise what kind of life they are being cheated out of?

There is some degree of truth to that. If you're not allowed to leave your nation, and don't have much foreign influence as far as media or whatever then whatever it is you experience in your home nation is "normal" at least in your perception.

Watching the Soviets' reactions to visiting stores in the West in the early 1990s was quite fascinating. Some people freaked out. I mean literally went nuts. At least temporarily. I was prepared for the abundance though having been born a capitalist in the wrong nation.

n'aww