I appreciate your politeness. Forgive me. I won't cast you off as one of those unquestioning faithfuls to a status quo. You're clearly concerned with questioning it, which is far beyond the attitudes of most people. Most people can't fathom supporting
less violence and less corporate control, merely by virtue of their having grown up into this current society with corporate-controlled government. This society is largely an echo chamber where roads to success are more easily achieved by
believing in one particular variation of capitalism (out of infinite variations) because exploiting it is far easier than questioning it.
> Pharmaceutical companies will still find it rational to stake money on clinical trials that may or may not yield the results necessary to ethically bring the drug to market. And they must still find it rational to do this while knowing that another rational company can just wait to hear the results of the clinical trial and just sell the drug effectively for free.
My position starts with peace. It sounds cliche. But peace as a groundwork for a more natural market doesn't need to worry or concern itself over whether PharmaABC Co. will pull in however many more $x billions beyond its $y billion in marketing/propaganda costs (resulting from the comparative ease they had in securing monopoly rights by buying and submitting new patents). What peace and a more natural market must concern itself with is protecting people and entities from other people and entities who attempt to wage involuntary relationships (e.g. mafia, gangs, businesses, government itself: especially institutions with three-letter acronyms). Under more peace and peaceful government, that which will follow may follow.
I agree with your paragraph's statements.
Pharmaceuticals would not go away. Yet still there would be vast amounts of money to be made. The distribution of that money would be more grounded though. Less corporate control would be a huge boom to scientific exploration. This holds true for any industry that becomes more accessible to people: hardware, computing, food. The upsides are always rational and ethically superior to their alternatives. 3D printing my own parts or brewing my own coffee will hurt the bottom line of certain interests. However, it will only expand the bottom lines of more people who can come to the table as a result of the mere ability to now enter a market. They matter too. Meanwhile, cafes of the world open their doors, even as Starbucks takes over block after block. Different wants create peacefully coexisting supplies.
If you want to understand my view, allow me to use this example. Pretend coffee is new. Pretend Starbucks doesn't exist. Pretend coffee plants came as a result of research, ideas, or derivations of nature. A world with patents in general is -- to me -- akin to a world where Starbucks could patent coffee. Or perhaps a capital group buys those patents to start a Starbucks and license them to only big players who have the capital. Society is at the mercy of Starbucks or the whims of a few. Starbucks can then (legally) prevent other people and businesses from growing, selling, and distributing coffee. Don't like their particular flavor? Don't like their company? Don't like the way they do business and source their goods? Tough luck. If it wasn't enough to build an empire on a service and product alone, they can now at least build an empire off of corporatism. Oh, and they'll continue to call the shots for another 6-20 years. And for what? Really, for what? So that they can amass themselves on the backs of a society's military/police/prison network (i.e. the institutions that ultimately back their corporate law)? So that they can prey upon high demand, as a taste for coffee quickly develops, without having to answer to the grounding forces of the absence of monopoly status? So that they will take the initial "risk" of being first to market? Any minor positives become unseen to the ignorance and imbalance this breeds. Consider that my vision of a living 'coffee nightmare.' :)
Just because something would no longer be patentable doesn't mean the constructs of society wouldn't form to support people and businesses discovering medical breakthroughs (or coffee). I mentioned earlier that I believe a society as this is even today -- of mostly 'good' people -- would mostly love and want to reward the ones who bear good and honest fruit for society. I also believe this path would have cyclical effects. It's that echo chamber again: learning that there are ways to conduct business without the luxury of dominance. There are many arguments to be made that over time this itself would increase the flow of commerce between people and also increase the re-flow of capital into more avenues of development and research. Granted, my words are also predicated on people having increased access to information about the entities with which they engage.
It's smart of you to be cautious.
It's wise of you to be concerned, not wanting to potentially rip the carpet out from under people who rely on potential drugs for peculiar and rare diseases. It's understandable to have notions deeply rooted in us through surroundings, such as fearing that a world without patents (what I like to call a more natural world) might mean a world where certain companies have no inclination to conduct science if they fear not obtaining their pot of gold. I respect and share your concern. But I'm also here to suggest that there's more to life than this. There's more to life than supporting something fundamentally corrupt that stems from fear. If other markets are any indication, and I believe they are, then for every company that would give up over no longer being able to claim patents -- that for every one of those types -- there are many more people and businesses on the sidelines who are eager to jump at the chance to fill voids and then some.
Yes, this would be with explicit understanding that it would probably result in less money for them and that the only dominance they achieve is inescapably up to them -- and up to a society that, under these freer conditions, I believe, would begin to become more prone to recognizing the efforts of those who take those risks (both recognition in fame and monetarily). You might consider this possibility. You might consider that nothing in life: no thought, no object, no idea, no system of logic, was born into this world yearning to be backed by violence. Only (some) individuals who 'birth' ideas call for backing them through violence. Do we want to enrich this mindset or stand for something better? The greatest tangibles and intangibles in life always seem to be born out of humanity's compulsion for logic and creativity. Ideas yearn to be free. The stuff we see around us is predominantly in spite of patents, not as a result of patents. But that's my opinion. Exciting times would be ahead for any area of science where people have increased access and needn't fear lawsuits and company death from patent holders. Unfortunately, those areas are few and unpredictable. The depth to which patents have sunk means one must have a great deal of legal backing (money) merely to venture a foot into an ocean of exploration. You might consider this. That's all I ask.