----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Lee" <grantlee at iinet.net.au>
> Mirror, mirror
> on the wall
>
> Who's the biggest
> protection racket of them all
Those "protected" by the Aust. Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme are the poor bastards who have to buy prescription drugs on a regular basis, it does _not_ protect Aust pharma capital, which is probably just as keen to see it go -- sorry "reformed" -- as the US manufacturers. The difference being, of course, that Aust. manufacturing capital is relatively diminutive and therefore does not have much political clout.
Grant.
=================
Right and now big pharma is getting protection..........Like I said, mirror, mirror on the wall.......
In trade somebody is always already being protected, we're just seeing a shift in the dialectics of protection.
"...the issue is not more versus less government [or big government versus small government], but rather to whose interests the government gives effect. Thus, a movement from more to less stringent requirements for the emissions of polluting firms is not a move from more to less government ['deregulation'], but a change in the structure of rights from pollutees to polluters. The big versus small government arguments are rhetorical devices, persuasive mechanisms reflective of and reinforcing traditional Western liberal ideology. The terms 'regulation' and deregulation' are rhetorical reflections of this ideology, since whenever rights are being changed, one party is being 'regulated' and the other 'deregulated.' [Steven Medema "Another Look at the Problem of Rent Seeking" JEI vol. xxv #4, 1050]