Free markets are good a at lot of things, but staying free is not one of them. (Similarly for a democracy, by the way).
A "naturally" regulated market eventually converges into one all-powerful monopoly player - it's a stable configuration that maximizes the profit for the owners of that monopoly.
So you have to regulate this "freedom" away from disappearing - in the same way that GPL regulates BSD freedom away from disappearing.
> A "naturally" regulated market eventually converges into one all-powerful monopoly player - it's a stable configuration that maximizes the profit for the owners of that monopoly.
This is unsupported by any serious literature. Economic theory tells us that the only circumstance in which this happens is an industry prone to natural monopoly, which are generally those constrained by geography and enormous fixed infrastructure costs coupled with relatively constant marginal costs.
The "natural" long-run state of free markets is economic equilibrium, which necessarily includes competition to reduce marginal profits to around zero at the point that the amount supplied is equal to the amount demanded.
Coca Cola is a luxury item. If they raise the price too much, no one will buy it, and that puts an upper limit to the price (and makes consolidation less profitable). And it still may happen if not for antitrust - I'm sure a combined RCPepsiCoca Cola company will be more profitable than three independent ones.
The only reason DataPrim price could be hiked was that the people who need it will actually pay for it. Same with ACTH. A captive audience is a wonderful thing -- something Coca Cola would love but doesn't have.
There were ~100 car manufacturers 100 years ago, how many are there now? (And cars are not as essential as ACTH)
There were tens to hundreds of media companies up until the 1980's. Now, there are essentially six[0]. And if antitrust didn't matter, there would probably be less.
Similar things are happening in pharma[0].
It is one aspect of capitalism that's to blame: "free market". If you monopolies are legal (and in a totally free market, they are), then you will get monopolies because they are more effective at extracting rent than competition. we've just seen this happen twice in the pharma market.
Are you saying Coca Cola is not attempting to get a soft drink monopoly? You should be a convenience store owner and see both the battle between them and Pepsi and the demands they put on their customers for preferred pricing.
Keep in mind that the United States has some pretty strong anti-monopoly laws in place. Hence, not a free market, hence, we're not all drinking Coca Cola to the exclusion of most other things.
Healthcare and pharmaceuticals are not even in the ball park of a normal free market.
1. Monopolies - We give monopolies to pharmaceutical companies to incentivize R&D.
2. Principal-Agent problem - Doctors guide, and make decisions about care for consumers. But However consumers of health care have different incentives than doctors.
3. Insurance - Most individuals are relatively shielded from the costs of their healthcare.
4. Public Good - Many people want to live in a society where people do not die from easily treatable conditions.
So yes a free markets is always the optimal solution given a certain set of assumptions. Unfortunately very few of these assumptions are true in healthcare.
There is no such thing. "Free markets" presume both particular context (which is not present in any real state, though it can sometimes be approximated) and particular artificial regulation (particular, particular constructions of property rights.)
The idea that "naturally regulated markets" is a meaningful concept (much less a meaningful concept with some correspondence with "free markets") is absurd on its face.
Disproven by privatisation of the UK rail industry. I think it's the most expensive in Europe, certainly close. Oh, and the European healthcare systems.
You could apply that to so many things. It's just an appeal to emotion. People also needlessly lack education because they can't pay, but we'd be fucked if the government jumped to guarantee more loans and grants.
If you were begging the question any harder, you'd be one of the people tech guys hate on in the Tenderloin. And at the same time you're teetering on the edge of an epiphany that strikes at the heart of techno-fetishistic free-market worship. Because the government guaranteeing loans and grants isn't a good way to provide education, no--but plenty of countries make education a state function and charge a very manageable amount, if anything at all, to students, while making the total cost of operation remarkably reasonable.
I don't understand - are you saying I was wrong? If so please tell me why or recommend me some reading. I do know that other countries are able state-fund education, but I don't concretely know why they're different. I just assumed that "jumping to guarantee more loans" is an obviously bad idea.
A "naturally" regulated market eventually converges into one all-powerful monopoly player - it's a stable configuration that maximizes the profit for the owners of that monopoly.
So you have to regulate this "freedom" away from disappearing - in the same way that GPL regulates BSD freedom away from disappearing.