In yesterday’s Cato Unbound lefty economist Dean Baker sees the possibility for common ground between libertarians and progressive in fighting corporatism, but doesn’t yet see libertarians making good on their part of the deal. While making largely sensible case against the status quo system of patents and copyrights, Baker writes:
The extraordinary abuses that we see every day as a result of patent protection for prescription drugs and copyright protection should be sending libertarians through the roof, and perhaps it does. But, where are the libertarians’ research programs on alternatives to patents for financing drug research or alternatives to copyrights for financing creative and artistic work? (I couldn’t find either program on Cato’s website.)
I’m not raising these issues as debating points. I absolutely believe that copyrights and patent monopolies for prescription drugs are extremely pernicious forms of government intervention into the market. I can’t understand why any serious libertarian would not be as bothered as I am.
Well, I am as bothered as Baker is. And over at Cato@Liberty, Tim Lee brings Baker up to date on some of his and Cato’s work on IP. Tim has a few disagreements with Baker about the best government framework for encouraging innovation, but the extent of overall agreement really is pretty impressive, and promising.
Richard Epstein put out a book in 2006 which discussed at length this question of pharmaceutical intellectual property rights. His general conclusion was “two thumbs up”. Find a summary of his argument at the article he wrote below:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles…
As libertarians, I'm sure we are in favor of protecting intellectual property rights on principle.
However, the USPTO is completely incompetent in evaluating and granting patents. Its effects on pharma appear to be different than its effects on technology. But the effects for both industries appear to highly unproductive, negating whatever benefit the patent system was intending to provide. The patent system is in desperate need of reform, as it now helps certain parties to use patents as tools for coercion. It is the power of coercion that we should be targeting to eliminate. Targeting “corporate power” (or corporatism) may be using a term that is overly broad in reach, as opponents of capitalism will quickly exploit the lumping together of the economic power of free enterprise with the coercion that is enabled by improper regulation (e.g., a broken patent system).
As libertarians, I'm sure we are in favor of protecting intellectual property rights on principle.
Speak for yourself! Libertarians are actually quite divided on the issue.
That Baker complains that the State will pay “too much” for drugs that are patented and at the same time wants them developed at all suggests he has no (or almost no) understanding of the process involved.
(And as a libertarian, why should I care about what the State pays for prescription benefits? I think it shouldn't even have such a program!)
He seems to think that new non-”copycat” drugs simply come into existence if you throw some money at the problem and wait a year.
Someone in the industry could (indeed, many have, on this Internet of ours, Derek Lowe being the obvious example) explain to him that “copycat” drugs are popular because most of the risk is already accounted for, and a little tweaking of the relatively-well-understood and already-thoroughly-tested drug can make real benefits that will engender sales and thus make a profit.
Developing really new drugs is immensely risky (in that they tend, even once you've found something that's promising in the lab and can be manufactured for a reasonable price somehow, they can still easily fail in the mice. Or the dogs. Or in people. And the later they fail, the more it costs – and thus the higher the price of every winner must be in order to keep the company from going bankrupt) and thus, for reasons explained in the previous parenthetical, immensely expensive.
I'm going to assume Baker, as a Progressive, doesn't want to make extensive testing optional, so I'd love an explanation for how he intends to make the risks and thus their costs vanish. (And no, nationalization won't help in any way.)
A prize system is worthless for that goal, because the prizes can't be big enough without providing about keeping total cost very high.
I see no need for research for an “alternative” to financing via the profit motive and protection via patents; it seems pretty much ideal at a theoretical level and at best needs only fine-tuning of patent lengths.
Given the time it can take for the FDA to “approve” a drug, I think the patent period should be longer on pharmaceuticals, which is doubtless not something Baker would accept.
(And an alternative where there are fewer drugs and no “marketing” doesn't appeal either, given that doctors can't do all their own research in to what's newly available, and there will inevitably be multiple choices to treat many complaints… where the hard scientific data doesn't tell the doctor what he should prescribe.
Why is information an ill to Progressives if you call it “marketing”? Why is free speech aimed at convincing someone to purchase one thing rather than another so often attacked by them?)
It is still apparent that I have almost no “common ground” with Progressives, even if we both think that copyright is (in the area of media) being abused.
Where we agree there's a problem (a small area indeed!) we disagree completely as to both the root cause and the remedies.
I was introduced to the anti-IP libertarian position by Stephan Kinsella at Mises.org, and while I normally don't care much for his reasoning I was convinced. Kevin Carson helped me along that road as well. I think Tom Bell has a book on the subject.
Dude, just because I support intellectual property rights does not mean I agree with any of the mechanisms in use today.
Finally, someone proposing something besides bailing out the financial industry. Give some thought to Grants to people or VERY SMALL companies who have innovative ideas. Currently the Gov grant programs are yet another way of transferring wealth upward not to where it is actually needed and would be put to good use.