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> I think fundamentally what we have here is the collision of socialism and capitalism, and I'm not sure how to make those work at the margins where they meet.

> I think fundamentally what we have here is the collision of socialism and capitalism, and I'm not sure how to make those work at the margins where they meet. Government funding of research is socialism, but selling the developed drugs is capitalism, and selling them outside the funding country without an increase in price costs the funding country. I don't think you really want to call what happens in Europe and Canada "socialism" in this context, because it's quite literally "Europe and Canada receive the benefits while the US pays for it". That's a definition of socialism I've heard, but only ever in a pejorative context. And government funding of research is not "socialism". It can happen in a socialist society, or it can happen in a capitalist one, and it's not inherently inconsistent (or synonymous) with either philosophy). I'm also not really thrilled with this framing of "socialism vs. capitalism", because Canada and most European countries do not officially claim to be socialist[0], and most of them aren't particularly socialist in practice. As a result, discussing the topic on those terms runs the very real risk of veering off into abstract philosophy without much grounding in the practical matter at hand, which is a very far way off from the original article. [0] Of all Western, Central, or Scandanavian European countries, only one (Portugal) even claims to be socialist officially, and that claim is made rather nominally.

kbenson 10y ago
I'm not labeling countries socialist and capitalist, I'm labeling practices such. I was talking about socialism and capitalism purely within the context of the U.S. Government funding of medical research for the good of its citizens is socialistic. Selling developed drugs on the market is capitalistic. When you use government funds for something which is eventually sold, but the government doesn't receive any direct compensation, there's a friction between the socialistic and capitalistic forces at play, and that's what we've been discussing. To be clear, I've made zero claims as to what is better, just that dthey engender different incentives that don't always play well with each other. My personal view is that there are definitely things we want the state to handle (some degree of welfare including health, some level of regulation of various parts of the economy), but the details as to how much government control are the important bits. Purely socialist and purely capitalist environments don't seem to function nearly as well as a mix, from what I've gleaned from history.

kbenson 10y ago

I'm not labeling countries socialist and capitalist, I'm labeling practices such. I was talking about socialism and capitalism purely within the context of the U.S. Government funding of medical research for the good of its citizens is socialistic. Selling developed drugs on the market is capitalistic. When you use government funds for something which is eventually sold, but the government doesn't receive any direct compensation, there's a friction between the socialistic and capitalistic forces at play, and that's what we've been discussing. To be clear, I've made zero claims as to what is better, just that dthey engender different incentives that don't always play well with each other. My personal view is that there are definitely things we want the state to handle (some degree of welfare including health, some level of regulation of various parts of the economy), but the details as to how much government control are the important bits. Purely socialist and purely capitalist environments don't seem to function nearly as well as a mix, from what I've gleaned from history.