A Matter of Prizes Winning Out

This is taking a bit of a different route this time, more concentrating on the patent versus prize debate instead of a question of Denmark. First off, I would like to agree with Stiglitz's opposition to the patent system for discovering cures, which leads to monopolies. There is too much at stake here to let individual pharmaceutical companies dictate development and distribution. With the monopoly system the pharmaceutical companies do not produce enough medicine at too high of a price to satisfy the world needs for their medicine. Furthermore, with a monopoly the company does not have sufficient incentive to improve their product, such as making the product more potent or reducing side effects. These major problems would be solved by using a prize system that allows for free-market competition. With free-market competition there would be massive incentive to reduce costs and prices with the companies continually trying to undercut the market. Also, with the free market there would be more doses of the cure being produced because there would be more firms entering the market. Combining these two market forces the companies are able to produce the pills cheap enough and in a vast enough quantity to be distributed from New York city to Zimbabwe to Beijing. Furthermore, the companies would have major market incentive to improve the product as well, making it more effective and safer for those people who need the cure. In the end, the benefits of the prize system far outweigh the "not enough incentive to actually develop the cure" argument proposed by the pro-patent people.