>If we - a I personally think we should - attach a social caveat to capitalism that requires we do what we can for people less fortunate, it fails miserably bec

>If we - a I personally think we should - attach a social caveat to capitalism that requires we do what we can for people less fortunate, it fails miserably because we lack a mechanism for fostering unfettered profit In the case of intellectual property/technology you are mistaken. Patents have an expiration. Capitalists are provided a time limited monopoly for the sake of extracting rent in exchange for development of that technology. But after the expiration, it becomes public domain. In this case, all of the drugs mentioned will eventually run off patent and be available in generic form for very little cost. Future generations will benefit considerably. This is where the moral argument becomes most powerful. Think of the potentially tens to hundreds of billions of people that will benefit from this in the future. Should we stop the pipeline of drug development because some people can't afford it today?