In The Modern Machiavellians, James Burnham illustrates the wisdom of a select few thinkers of Italia. His later subtitlers have called this insight “political truth against wishful thinking.” People, especially that oft wretched class called politicians, say a lot of things, and mean very little of what they say. Do not take statements at face-value. Evaluate and critically examine every statement made by everyone. Yes. Even this one.
The so-called paper of record ran two pieces this week, in its opinion section, to allegedly represent two opposing sides of the debate around intellectual ‘property’, insofar as it is related to the imminent issue of vaccines. The first piece is against intellectual ‘property’. The second is for. You can read the second as a correction of the first, by the savvy staff. The first piece is written by a public health activist. The second by a Big Pharma lobbyist. The first uncovers the euphemism patents to in fact mean “pharmaceutical monopolies.” The second fearmongers about “future medical innovation.” Both are responding to calls to reform the neocolonial WTO. Abolition would be better. Or at least any diminishing steps along the path.
Prof. John Danaher, the best technician and tactician in the martial sciences, says the job of any coach is to make implicit knowledge explicit. I have implicitly known intellectual ‘property’ is illusory since 2001 and the whole Napster fiasco; which gave life to Limewire, Frostwire, and The Pirate Bay. Tower Records was still a thing at the time, and although some of my peers pursued five-finger discounts willy-nilly, most would never think of stealing physical and tangible products irl, and yet everyone copped free unlimitedly produced nonphysical and intangible music, film, and books. Intellectual ‘property’ lawyer Stephen Kinsella makes this argument cogently in his book on the subject. Isn’t notable when left-wing democratic socialists and a right-wing libertarian are making the same argument? Both are anti-establishment. And the establishment are priests and priestesses of the American religion; soft theocratic moralistic therapeutic deism, which sprung forth from the brand of low-church Protestantism known as Puritanism. Love it or hate it, thems the facts.
Later in the aughts, I attended the Rock the Bells hiphop festival in San Bernadino, CA, where independent goat Immortal Technique encouraged his listeners to cop his album for free through illicit means, but warned them not to cower when the police were stopped next to them at a red light. Rather, he said, roll the windows down and bump my music! Music is different than medicine, but musicians are still making money from their music. Rather than individual purchases (which are still made), we live in an era of streaming, but also musicians make most of their money from fans attending concerts and buying merchandise (especially directly from the source).
There is no reason similar innovation could not and would not occur in medicine, if vaccines were made maximally available, and no one was forced to take them. But, who cares about the poor and the needy? The orphan and the widow?