Capitalism and Doctors, A Reply.

This afternoon a friend txted me over an article in the Marshall Unversity campus newspaper, The Parthenon. While reading the given article, I noticed a friend of mine wrote a column yesterday titled, For the Love of Doctors and Capitalism, which I then read. I found a comment on the column, which spurred me to respond.

Here is my reply:

Ms. White raises some very good points, particularly from where will innovation come when market incentives are replaced by government incentives. I applaud her for telling her “love story” of the only system that has pulled millions (within the last decade or so, alone) from the grinding poverty, which I am sure COLA would even renounce.

It was no other system than capitalism that broke mankind’s chains to what economists call, The Malthusian Trap, wherein with each increase in technology the population growth caused by such an increase would return the group or community back to the same standards of living, as if the technological innovation had never occurred at all.

What does this say? It says that mankind had a subsistence equilibrium from his appearance on the African savannahs to the dawn of The Industry Revolution. In other words, mankind was no better off in 1700 A.D. England than he was in 2000 B.C. Babylon or even just some clan or tribe wandering Northern Europe or the island of Japan prior to the written word, itself. Mankind had never truly improved his lot in life until Capitalism gave him the market incentives to break the bonds of subsistence. If COLA does not think man should return to the subsistence equilibrium, there are still plenty who would sent mankind back tomorrow, if they could.

Moving beyond the history lesson, the world lives off American health care innovation. The top five American hospitals conduct more clinical trails than all the hospitals in the developed world. If one cares about the poor of the world, then it stands that he or she should advocate the liberation of American health care, instead of afflicting it more so with perverse government incentives, which in return will harm the developing and developed alike.

To COLA: firstly, I do not think you are stupid, but many of the comments made in your name are excessively rude and very asinine; secondly, I am not sure where the “Rebel Flag” came in here, but nevertheless, that is another discussion; thirdly, I wish political scientists took more econ courses, then they might actually learn something about how the world works; and finally, how does one get to speak for the whole of a College on the Marshall University campus, or is it just too much trouble to be an individual these days?


I know it has been a while since my last posting, but to be honest, I have been busy. I hope to find the time to write up something soon, but no guarantees.