James Lyons-Weiler – The Pharma Bulls are Loose, and it’s the End of American Democracy

A free and open market is a conservative’s dream. Laissez-faire policies mean freedom of markets to explore, and evolve. Competition, the argument goes, drives innovation, and innovation means better goods and services for consumers. The natural checks and balances of supply & demand provide brakes on runaway aggregation of wealth, and all stakeholders – including investors, workers, consumers, producers – can live in a naturally harmonious system. Sure, there are losers, but that’s because there are winners – and the best survive – and this includes individuals in each of these categories.

Unless, of course, the evolution that occurs – and the innovations that occur – by design somehow manages to short-circuits the natural checks & balances that keep the market from ballooning. To make sure that doesn’t happen, and the help the economy get back on its feet, Keynsian mild interventions have been imagined to help sweeten soured economies.

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