> (mostly unconscious) ideological biases. Also, are you suggesting the
firms
> won't ramp up production if the government agrees to subsidize their R and
D
> and buy up the additional supply at a price that guarantees them a good
> profit, regardless of how much demand is created by a flu pandemic?
These folks would argue that that there is a limit to public funding of public goods created by the so-called "median voter." The argument is that the "median voter" (which is a metaphor for the mainstream, I suppose) would oppose public funding of any collective goods that benefit mainly a narrowly defined group, so such goods will "naturally" be underproduced. This argument also serves as a justification for private philanthropy - as a mechanism for funding those underfunded collective goods. So in short, cuts in public financing of collective services is only "democratic" - and the solution is private philanthropy. If they only applied this reasoning to defense spending, which is a classic collective good.
Joanna: <<< Isn't there a solution ready to hand? Mobilize all the labs at all the universities in the country and crank em out. Cheap and educational!>>>
Not in the US. That would create competition to private monopoly capital and the business sector would let the hell lose - including staging a coup - if government was serious about competing with private business. They know they cannot compete and that is why they are adamant about killing all public services anywhere in the world. It is not about "ideology" but about very survival of private monopoly capital.
Governments can produce goods cheaper, better, more efficiently and distribute them more equitably. This is a no-brainer - everyone familiar with the concept of the economies of scale can grasp that. The private monopoly capital, otoh, survives and operates by monopolizing market niches, which enables it to add economic rent to the cost of the goods they produce. Such rent is the major component of the price of goods sold in the US (whose actual cost of production is a tiny fraction of the price).
Such monopoly, and fabulous profits it generates, can only be preserved in the absence of competition from the public sector. That is why monopoly capital fights public services tooth and nail - its not just matter of ideology, its very survival depends on it.
So for these folks, millions of people dying from the avian flu is a small price to pay for retaining their control of the economy. They would go much further, including staging a coup, to thwart any attempt to nationalize production of anything.
BTW, there is a reason why the guillotine or Comrade Mauser were prominent tools of revolutions. There is no other way when dealing with entrenched elites firmly convinced that they are entitled to what they own - but to let their heads roll. When the anti-corporate revolution finally comes, its tool will be defenestration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestration - letting the corporate pigs fly from windows on the top of their corporate towers. :)
Wojtek