What Iowa looked like before genetically engineered corn
I’ve been hanging out lately with a young economist who’s been making a study of the history of economic thought. The conversation is a bit one sided, because, while I’ve heard of economic philosophers such as Keynes, Mill, Smith, et al., he’s actually read them.
Sunday night, the conversation turned to the government’s role in economic policy. He told me that, despite all the political bloviation to the contrary, all serious economists past and present, believe the government has a role (and even duty) to influence the market–not just to keep it safe to operate.
Two stories on the front page of the Wall Street Journal make that point today. (Sorry, you’ll have to subscribe to read them, just like I do.) One story made note of the well documented fact that many American drug companies have stopped making vaccines and antibiotics because they can make so much more money making Lipitor and Viagra. So, just when we really need vaccines and antibiotics, there ain’t none. The story, of course, (this is the WSJ, afterall) makes the point that the drug pushers can’t make any money because the government essentially sets the price, for vaccines especially, and it lets people sue the companies for alleged side effects.
Seems to me these are both easy fixes: indemnify the companies against any good faith mistakes, and since drug companies are, or at least should be in part, in business for the public good, license them sort of like we license broadcasters. In effect, we’ll let you make huge profits on your drugs, but in return, you have to do something for us, and make drugs we need, but the public weal demands be widely available and cheap. (Ok, I was kidding about regulating broadcasters, but you get the point.)
The second story was that of a farmer in Spain who had spent years developing a special organic variety of corn, only to have it polluted by strains of genetically engineered seed pollen blowing into his field from his neighbors. It is a growing problem, affecting even such American industrial giants as Anheuser Busch, who want to keep their beer making ingredients pure.
What an apt metaphor for the unregulated spread of all things capitalism.
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