Intellectual property & the public good

Intellectual property rights are supposedly to give their creator time to monetise their rights.

It can take a long while to be ready to make an invention or idea work practically, let alone produce it at a scale big enough to cover expenses and make a profit after setup expenses have been recouped. The exclusivity of the rights are an incentive to bring them to fruition before they become public property. The notion behind it is that such ideas would otherwise require governments to do the heavy work, and they tend to rightly be less oriented to such endeavours.

The problem, which has led to the uneven distribution of life-saving and life-enhancing medicines is that critical health should not be subject to such a discriminatory regime, as it has obviously led to creating oversupply in rich countries and undersupply elsewhere, leading to the stupid situation where a pandemic is drawn out because those poorer countries have become breeding grounds for new virus strains that are more contagious, and from which rich countries cannot escape.

Of course, this arrangement suits pharmaceutical companies because it ensures that their vaccines are required for years to come as boosters, rather than leading to the elimination of the virus which would be the biggest benefit to humanity, as has been shown by those other worldwide diseases that have been virtually eliminated when vaccines have been distributed more equitably. This is why health should not be subject to normal economic processes, just because it leads to such inhumane outcomes.

Health should be controlled by governments in service of their citizens, and not by owners of rights divorced from social benefits. Vaccines that prevent diseases and medicines that relieve adverse symptoms should be developed by governments and never be privatised. This means that governments, individually and collectively, should fund the research and put it immediately into the public domain. Humanity should not have to wait 20 years for expensive medicines to overcome disease and other health issues. Companies could then compete to make them under tender, but based upon cost, not rights.

As Tom pointed out, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has used its international legal powers to enforce the exploitative commercial regimes that foster wealth and health inequality worldwide.

If governments were taking the health and wellbeing of their citizens seriously, they would not be signing treaties that continue the economic arrangements that undermine those goals. But this is not unusual as trade has always been geared to gaining warlords, monarchs or robber-barons the most exploitation out of those with the least ability to resist it. Today the WTO graces it with international legitimacy. Unfortunately, most governments have tied their countries' economies too intimately to these WTO treaties.

The only way undo this course of exploitation is for individual government to stop signing such treaties, or at least negotiating harder for fairer terms in future treaties. But that will only happen if those governments suddenly become enlightened (yeah?) or citizens vote them out, and vote in those who are not beholden to such nefarious economic ideals. For voters to change, they need to see how this form of globalism is creating inequality within their countries and extended to those worse off than them.

Global trade is not bad per se, but it must be conducted so that there is no exploitation of one country at the expense of others. To get there, wages have to reach an international equilibrium, free of artificial constraints imposed by those with substantial economic advantage. This would solve internal inequality, international inequality and keep local industries afloat, as well as reduce international transport. This is a major change in macro-economic thinking, but is essential if we are to really tackle inequality and proper independence of nations and the people within them.

One of the most egregious aspects of the Covid pandemic was that the US and German governments significantly funded the development of mRNA vaccines but did not reap a fair share of the profits.

This is not unusual, as governments often fund significant infrastructure projects or give substantial concessions that benefit only one company. Sports stadiums and corporate headquarters come to mind here. But it is part of a larger false narrative that such funding is meant to bring flow-on stimulation to the economy that is going to result in more government income through taxes. This largely ignores that such large companies avoid most or all taxes while making huge profits without repaying the initial government funding. This is an example of how trickle-down economics fails in practice.

However, it does make sense in the larger 40-year conservative agenda of a few people becoming very rich while governments and their citizens foot the bill. Rich people make large, but insignificant to them, donations to politicians to steer public funding their way, or make legislation that favours their business models, often by providing their own so-called experts as consultants to government deliberations. This funding diversion results in substantial underfunding of public investment in citizen health, education and welfare, all of which are largely opposed by conservatives.

In contrast to current government priorities, the only way forward for citizens is for total government funding of health, education and welfare.

These three areas are significant contributors to a country's citizens being able to have better opportunities in life because they are less disadvantaged by the circumstances of their birth, level of knowledge and skills, or life events beyond their control. Even from the standpoint of a greed-obsessed society, poor people with health, education and supportive welfare when required are of more long-term benefit to the economy than than those who lack them, who will tend to rely on the resources of those around then, meaning more people won't be able to fully contribute to the economy.

Of course, such considerations are ignored by those solely focussed on short-term wealth gathered through maximising immediate opportunities to enrich themselves, but those concerned with the medium to long-term stability of their societies will understand that sufficient levels of citizen comfort will foster a stable society compared to one that relies on egregious exploitation until the point of starvation.

Some fear that too much government control breeds too much control of society. Most of society's activities don't need such control.

Of course, consistent with a citizen health mandate, governments need to specify adequate minimum safety standards for products, services and activities, but otherwise don't need to constrain those activities, except as required to ensure other people are not prevented from exercising their freedom because of them. This is not that much different from the current situation, but perhaps applied in a much more equitable way that does not favour certain groups over others.

Our current notions of free enterprise can continue to cater for best serving these discretionary living choices, but history has readily shown that it can be an abject failure when applied to what people really need. However, governments can help people maintain the balance between their needs and their desires by educating them with the knowledge and skills to see how their choices can be adversely affected when they fail to discriminate between them. Choices are only effective when clear-headed and not blinded by lies and propaganda fed by emotional exploitation.

Focussing on money has blinded democratic governments to their primary directive of serving their people, so there has to be an new people-centred focus.

Unfortunately, many governments see expenditures on health, education and welfare as necessary overheads that need to be avoided as much as possible, rather than as an investment in peoples' ability to be independent, creative and fulfilled as much as possible. It is the direct outcome of seeing government in not only purely economic terms, but largely as an enabler of mass exploitation of people as resources in the quest of a few to achieve unnecessary levels of wealth.

This is not new, as such goals have been the driver of almost every type of society that has been beholden to the few privileged who maintained their stranglehold on society by force, and perpetuated and maintained by those that sought their favour. Thus we collectively have a huge habit to break if we are to move towards equity. To counter that habit, we have to change the individual and collective thinking so that it doesn't feed the emotional investment in the beliefs that underlie the habit.

This is not about some pop-psychology social-media bubble, but a concerted effort to publicise the collective and individual damage to our health and wellbeing that has resulted from such a severely myopic focus on money and the resulting runaway economic estrangement we have adopted in relation to our needs. The truth shall set us free, but only if we take the steps to see it, and that is embedded in the choices we take from now on, from what we focus upon, and what we demand those whom we elect to represent us focus upon.