This is not directly related, but I do think it is along your line of thought here. I just finished doing some research into Pharmaceutical Industry and found some very interesting and disturbing things.
Pharmaceutical companies genrally post enourmous profits. One of the arguments for allowing them these profit margins is that they need this money to fund the research that creates new, lifesaving drugs.
The truth of the matter is that about 50% of all pharmaceutical research comes out of the Gov't (especially the NIH), another 10% comes from Foundations, the remainder is industry sponsored. What's more, the research the industry sponsors is generally NOT into new drugs per se, but into what are called 'me too' drugs. A me too drug is a variation on a theme -- yet another non-steriodal anti-inflammatory, yet another quinoline etc. They don't answer a need, they give the company another product to market. And, with the right marketing effort, it doesn't matter that the product in question doesn't answer a need, that there are other, safer, older, cheaper products on the market.
With the exception of several AIDS drugs, almost all drugs which address a REAL need, a serious need, were developed with government funds by government scientists.
Here's a particularly striking example. Johnson and Johnson had a drug which was used for combatting worms in Sheep. The drug, called levamisole, retailed for 6 cents a dose. Presumably, J&J was turning a profit at 6 cents adose. Researchers at NIH discovered that levamisole was useful in treating colon cancer in human beings. Overnight the price jumped from 6 cents a dose to 6 DOLLARS a dose.
In response to these sorts of incidents Bernard Sanders of Vermont tried to get some reasonable pricing legislation passed --- legislation which would mandate that drugs which were invented by the gov't (or with a significant amount of govt help) were priced reasonably. The legislation failed. Twice.
Not surprisingly, pharmaceuticals spend an enourmous amount of money on political contributions.
Here is a place wherein libertarian property rights are upheld *in the face of* contradiction, and the conspicous suffering and death caused by such policies. Here's a place wherein it is quite obvious that the invisible hand doctrine is so obviously bullshit.
Ta ta Beth Goldstein
>
> Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1999 11:14:34 -0700
> From: kayak3 <kayak3 at bouldernews.infi.net>
> Subject: Re: debating libertarians
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> > kayak3 wrote:
> >
> > >Has anyone on the list debated libertarians?
> >
> > I've done it on the net, on the radio, and at parties, with opponents
> > ranging from name-brand flacks like Michael Tanner of Cato to
> > anonymous newsgroup loons. My experience is that you'll get a lot of
> > abstract priciples and soundbites but not much in the way of argument
> > from evidence. I debated/interviewed a Cato hack on my radio show on
> > Social Security privatization and, when cornered, she kept repeating
> > the mantra, "You don't want the government managing your retirement
> > portfolio, do you?"
> >
> > One of my favorite topics is the development of the computer and the
> > Internet, which they typically take as a story of of plucky
> > individualist entrepreneurs. I've patiently tried to make the
> > argument that both were subsidized for decades by the Pentagon and
> > that nonprofit institutions like universities played an important
> > role throughout - and it's only relatively recently that
> > profit-seekers have played a leading role after the government paid
> > the basic research and startup costs. (The Pentagon lobbied private
> > industry and Wall Street from the late 1940s into the 1960s to get
> > involved in funding and development, but there was little interest.)
> > The typical response I've gotten from libertarians is either to deny
> > this is the case, or to claim that if taxes hadn't been so high the
> > private sector would have done it, and better than the government.
>
> So I've been looking through all of my past issues of the LBO looking
> for some data that indicates that there is no correlation between tax
> rates on corporations and the level of money they spend on R&D. I know
> that I've read somewhere at least once, if not several times that R&D
> spending went down through the 80's as tax rates on corporations (and
> wealthy individuals) also went down. Corporations decided instead to go
> on a binge of mergers, aquisitions and all sorts of speculation. Off the
> top of your head, does anyone know of any studies that confirm this? I'm
> sure they are out their somewhere.
>
> Thanks
> Brad Hatch
>