The following will help reinforce my
earlier contention (Preface to Medical Veritas...) regarding
the understanding of the root causes. Surely without
understanding the problem one can hardly come to grips with
the solution? Freedom and ethics in such sectors as medical,
energy, etc. is very unlikely if we choose to ignore what is
staring us in the face!
Chris Gupta
--------------Posted comment on Chris Gupta's site (www.newmediaexplorer.org)
The problem lies in authoritarianism (i.e. government). When
you give one group (the State) a monopoly on cohesive force
(violence) you will always, and I mean, always have things
like this . The problem is not medicine, the problem is
GOVERNMENT. It's not lack of laws. It's not a faulty
constitution. It's not that we need more studies. It's not
that we need more citizen involvement. The problem lies
squarely on the fact that we allow one group of people to have
a monopoly on the use or force. NOTE: we all know that true
monopolies are bad, yet we think it's ok for government to
have monopolies. Hmmmm.... what's wrong with this picture?
If we didn't have any governing body to speak of we would not
have this problem. People would be free to choose their own
remedies. They would seek out whomever they wished for
consultation (and not necessarily MDs).
In the free market, if a company puts out a bad product people
would find out and simply stop buying that product. The
company would have to improve its quality or it would go out
of business (the consumer would VOTE it out of office.... in
real-time.... not after five years). In the event of a real
injury the company will be sued out of existence, and it's
CEOs possibly imprisoned. However, if you take our present
situation we are all forced (BY GOVERNMENT) to accept their
(badly over priced) services (even if they lead to an early
death). Now that's the danger of a true monopoly.
If anyone tries to compete with any government monopoly they
will most certainly be in big trouble. Whereas in the free
market the consumer gets to choose, and will only keep on
choosing (voting for that company with their dollars) if that
provider of goods and services can satisfy them in some way.
If that so-called "cure for cancer" doesn't work then we'll
soon find out and move on to another therapy. This will lead
to higher quality health care through the process of
elimination and (more importantly), unhampered experimentation
(nature's unsurpassed survival of the fittest law) . Health
care is just like any other good or service, because it is
subject to the same natural laws of supply and demand.
The free market will always strive to bring the highest
quality at the lowest prices (unless you have a cohesive force
mucking things up). This comes about simply because of
competition between providers. And, NO, there is no such thing
as a true monopoly in a totally free market setting. In order
to have a true monopoly you must use some sort of force in
order to make things stay the same.
In the free market a company could only get people to buy into
its products if it can provide better value than the next guy.
This is why WalMart is successful. WalMart doesn't force
people to buy its products. People buy them because they offer
the lowest overall prices at the highest quality for that
price range. If a company tries to set up a true monopoly by
buying up its competition then it will soon find itself
pricing its goods too high to make up for its capital
expenditures. If it holds its prices down in order to put its
competition out of business then it will drain away its
capital reserves and go out of business as well. It will, in
effect, be transferring its wealth to the public in the form
of prices being lower than the true market rate. No company
can afford to become a true monopoly using these methods in
the long run. The only way it can hope to gain any form of
monopoly is to compete with it competitors and try and outdo
them in the form of quality and price, and no one will
complain about that.
If companies try to set up a cartel, this will not work in the
long run either because as prices rise the temptation for one
company to cheat will be too great. Also, when prices are too
high this makes it very tempting for new entrepreneurs to
enter the market and compete. If a cartel manages to hold
together long enough new technology will be developed that
will compete with the cartel indirectly. This is called
parallel competition. This is the worst kind of competition
because it's technologically dissimilar and can be cheaper to
produce and more effective. A good example of this is when
Sony came out with the Betamax system. They didn't want to
license it to other manufacturers. They wanted a monopoly. So
another company called JVC developed the VHS format and they
licensed it like crazy. Betamax was clearly the better
technology at that time but JVC won out, it was a parallel
technology, albeit slightly inferior --- but it satisfied the
consumer and they voted for it with their dollars. BOOOM --
Beta GONE!!! This is true democracy at work. The free
(unhampered) market is a beautiful thing. Can you imagine if
the GOVERNMENT stepped in and prevented JVC from competing? à
la: Health Canada Puts Health at Risk!
The best thing for us to do is work to get rid of government
as we know it. We must eliminate all forms of cohesive
competition and allow people to choose, and, YES, even make
mistakes.
