The Laws of Demand and Supply
Why I have never seen it, despite it having stared at me straight in the face throughout my two years of pre uni and another three in it, is simply a source of bloody embarrassment! Any student of basic economics knows the laws of supply and demand. About how there is this magical price at which supply and demand would equal, and there would be neither excess of supply, or lack of demand. A point, that is to say, in equilibrium.
That it is a "law" implies something sacred and sacrosanct about it. Something that is close to the laws of nature itself, as to how things are or should be. Something that even has the absolute authority of science behind it, what with graphs and figures to back it up.
Now I realise that the law of demand and supply is as much the laws of a particular belief system. The religion of capitalism. For demand, in this "scientific" equation, really refers to want that is backed up by purchasing power. Dollars and cents. Cold, hard cash.
So there can be perfect economic equilibrium in our perfect world, but it is really only perfect for those who can afford to buy what they want, and those who profit by supplying it.
It is far from equilibrium for the majority of the population who have third world diseases and no effective economic "demand" for cures. No major western pharmaceutical company is developing better cures for Malaria and TB and sleeping sickness and Chagas and Leshmaniasis simply because there is no economic sense - there is no money to be made. And where there is money to be made, as in drugs for HIV patients, patents and the corresponding high costs of drugs are denying affordable life-saving medicine to tens of millions.
And this is where the laws of supply and demand are laws for the rich, the middle income, the prosperous. In the capitalist world, you can get anything you want, as long as you can pay for it. And for billions of people that we have forsaken for the sake of our new religion. Our shiny, expensive new God clad in a Cerruti suit and Dior shoes. For the billions that cannot afford to pay for healthcare, for vaccinations, for their own education and that of their children.
They can only pay for it with the only things that they can afford. They are paying for it with their lives and their childrens' future.
That it is a "law" implies something sacred and sacrosanct about it. Something that is close to the laws of nature itself, as to how things are or should be. Something that even has the absolute authority of science behind it, what with graphs and figures to back it up.
Now I realise that the law of demand and supply is as much the laws of a particular belief system. The religion of capitalism. For demand, in this "scientific" equation, really refers to want that is backed up by purchasing power. Dollars and cents. Cold, hard cash.
So there can be perfect economic equilibrium in our perfect world, but it is really only perfect for those who can afford to buy what they want, and those who profit by supplying it.
It is far from equilibrium for the majority of the population who have third world diseases and no effective economic "demand" for cures. No major western pharmaceutical company is developing better cures for Malaria and TB and sleeping sickness and Chagas and Leshmaniasis simply because there is no economic sense - there is no money to be made. And where there is money to be made, as in drugs for HIV patients, patents and the corresponding high costs of drugs are denying affordable life-saving medicine to tens of millions.
And this is where the laws of supply and demand are laws for the rich, the middle income, the prosperous. In the capitalist world, you can get anything you want, as long as you can pay for it. And for billions of people that we have forsaken for the sake of our new religion. Our shiny, expensive new God clad in a Cerruti suit and Dior shoes. For the billions that cannot afford to pay for healthcare, for vaccinations, for their own education and that of their children.
They can only pay for it with the only things that they can afford. They are paying for it with their lives and their childrens' future.
posted by aries at
10:03 PM
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