[lbo-talk] Dumb QOTD: What kind of labor produces intellectual property?

Somebody Somebody philos_case at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 7 11:11:02 PDT 2011


Wojtek: If patents could be used that way, some really big bads - like destruction of traditional medicine by big pharma, could be avoided...

Somebody: What traditional medicine has been destroyed? People can still go to acupuncturists, faith healers, herb retailers, and homeopathic specialists. And they do. As a matter of fact, FDA unregulated alternative medicine like this is itself big business: over $30 billion is spent on the stuff per year in the U.S.

I'm glad Cuba, for example, has invested in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology without relying upon the same level of intellectual property rights as the West. We should be advocating more public control and investment in pharmaceuticals, not their replacement by untested remedies from the pre-scientific era. For example, state-owned pharmaceutical firms would invest much more in vaccines and treatments for infectious diseases common to tropical nations and less on life-style drugs for impotence and unsatisfactory eyelash development.



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