On Jan 27, 2012, at 2:45 PM, Eugene Coyle wrote: > What is the definition of "Market Failure"? > > > Specifically, is the following Market Failure or something else? > > Consider a pharmaceutical company which develops a drug after the > expenditure of say $1 billion and is able to produce a daily dose > for 50 cents. The company considers the volume to be sold and > realizes that it must get, say, $5.00 per pill to make a profit. > The formula for the pill is public. Without a patent on the drug it > can't sell for $5.00, so it needs patent protection to be profitable. > > Is the need for patent protection "market failure" or is that > something else? > > If something else, what is that called?
The notion of 'market failure" presumes the notion of "market success," and that notion would be valid only if the market were capable, under capitalism, of benefiting the people. But this is impossible because only perfectly competitive markets are, in bourgeois theory, of benefit to society. In reality capitalist markets are monopolistic. Patent protection is not "market failure"--it's just the normal market mechanism of monopoly capitalism, and that's what it must be called. Shane Mage "All things are an equal exchange for fire and fire for all things, as goods are for gold and gold for goods." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr, 90 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
