More on the evils of capitalism.

ViRedd

ViRedd

New Member
Wal-Mart Adds 12 States to Drug Plan

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest retailer, said Thursday it is extending its $4 generic prescription drug plan to another 12 states, bringing to total to 27 states.
The move brings 1,008 more stores under the program, under which Wal-Mart charges $4 for a one-month supply of 314 different prescriptions. That number includes 143 drugs in a variety of dosages and solid or liquid forms.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart rolled out the program in Florida three weeks ago and last week added 14 states to the list. The low-priced drugs are now available in 2,507 Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Neighborhood Market stores.
The company said in a news release that it accelerated the launch of the low-priced prescriptions because of customer demand.
Analysts say the program will help Wal-Mart by bringing in more customers who will shop in other store departments, and extend its reach in another segment of the retailing industry - the drug store business.
Union-backed Wal-Mart critics have also accused the company of using the low-priced drugs to divert attention from its own employee health insurance plan, which anti-Wal-Mart groups say does not offer adequate coverage.
States added Thursday were: Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota and Virginia.
States already with the program were: Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Vermont.


Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
 
learning05

learning05

Active Member
I know this a old post but yeah.

But what do you expect from a business which operates within the capitalistic model? Their goal is to profit exploit and the market's goal is to increase competition. Wal Mart is just leading due to their "cold" business model. Making suppliers bid for lowest-supply price so that then can sell to consumers at low prices = good business. It turns the wheels of international trade world wide.

Big-pharma is already a huge industry and many corporations overcharge for their products. Some of these products which are essential to people's survival. Add big-insurance to the picture and major corps basically have power to influence all our lives. If wal mart decides to profit-exploit healthcare and provide low cost drugs to generate more volume of customers - they are just "winning" in the business sense. Consumer culture + capitalism = competitive citizens who are forced to spend money by culture since social status is equated with material possessions. If we all compete no one really wins...

IMO this is the way to world chose to travel post-industrial revolution...and I don't like it.
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
What alternative would you propose, keeping the essential nastiness of human nature in mind? cn

ceterum censeo bumping ancient threads isn't very classy.
 
learning05

learning05

Active Member
Yeah didn't mean to bump it. I filtered through the posts using the least replies and didn't look at when it was posted till after I submitted by reply. Whoops...But I don't have a alternative but that doesn't mean an alternative doesn't exist.

It just means, I personally am not knowledgable enough to suggest or think of one. In my mind, our beliefs of human nature and traits being innate is false. It can be changed through science and education. Psych-Evolution wise we bring with us survival tendencies from a time where only the tough survived. In modern times, the weak can also survive; therefore, no need for intense competition. I imagine a balance between max profit exploitation and profit making to be a better model to strive towards for all business. Yes, top CEOs will have less profit but happier employers and inturn happier people in general.
 
abandonconflict

abandonconflict

Well-Known Member
Why would you suggest that the solution to any problem related to the health of communities assume "the essential nastiness of human nature" as a parameter? Indeed what good can be done with such a mindset at all?
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
abandonconflict said:
Yeah, stick to the dystopian stuff then. Nothing that hasn't been tried before can possibly work.
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I don't think it's fair to trivialize my viewpoint like that. Even so, just because it hasn't been tried doesn't necessarily mean it should be.
What i am suggesting (warning, even) is that wishing for people to be nice has been proven not to work. A model or philosophy, to be worth the spending of scarce resources to give it a proper go, should be in line with both sides of human nature: the soaring hopes and the grim memories of our capacity for barbarity, individually and institutionally. Macchiavelli is worth really studying ... not so much as a manual than as a warning. Jmo. cn
 
learning05

learning05

Active Member
What works of Machiavelli do you recommend? You mention our capacity but do you think our capacity is influenced by our environment or is innate by biology? I think it is moreso a function of society; therefore, can be changed. Not saying major change is needed but within big-business world, I agree with abandonconflict's signature quote by Orwell. Capitalism will always have leaders and their power is often abused.
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
abandonconflict said:
So we should look to Machiavelli to solve the problem of getting medicine to people who need it?
Click to expand...
Precisely. He'll tell us how to deal with the bandits who are on the road between the suppliers of the medicines and the ones who need it. Remember twenty years ago how massive food aid was being funneled into the Horn of Africa only to be intercepted by organized SOB brigands with 23mm cannon? THAT is the problem, and it isn't always restricted to the hinterlands. A real solution must have provisions for the SOBs. Jmo. cn
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
learning05 said:
What works of Machiavelli do you recommend? You mention our capacity but do you think our capacity is influenced by our environment or is innate by biology? I think it is moreso a function of society; therefore, can be changed. Not saying major change is needed but within big-business world, I agree with abandonconflict's signature quote by Orwell. Capitalism will always have leaders and their power is often abused.
Click to expand...
Il Principe.

Big business, imo, has much in common with the African brigands. The commonality is freedom from effective oversight - in their worlds they are the big dogs. The problem is that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". I cannot conceive or recommend a formulaic workaround for that. It relies on there always being enough brave, honorable and clear-eyed people to stand firm against the bastards, and the formula that worked yesterday might not work tomorrow. i have no easy answers. cn
 
abandonconflict

abandonconflict

Well-Known Member
cannabineer said:
Precisely. He'll tell us how to deal with the bandits who are on the road between the suppliers of the medicines and the ones who need it. Remember twenty years ago how massive food aid was being funneled into the Horn of Africa only to be intercepted by organized SOB brigands with 23mm cannon? THAT is the problem, and it isn't always restricted to the hinterlands. A real solution must have provisions for the SOBs. Jmo. cn
Click to expand...
The ends do not justify the means imo.
 
learning05

learning05

Active Member
Very true. It would be cool to conceive a model in which power does not lead to corruption. Again, I think it is a flaw of capitalism + consumerism. But nowadays, they aren't many "brave, honorable and clear-eyed people to stand firm against the bastards." Plus the lack of political activism by the working class contributes to the problem...I will check out Il Principe.
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
learning05 said:
Very true. It would be cool to conceive a model in which power does not lead to corruption. Again, I think it is a flaw of capitalism + consumerism. But nowadays, they aren't many "brave, honorable and clear-eyed people to stand firm against the bastards." Plus the lack of political activism by the working class contributes to the problem...I will check out Il Principe.
Click to expand...
I prefer not to think about classes (a sort of collective and thus beloved of "political scientists", an oxymoron if ever there was one) but about individuals and societies marked by an ability for the individual to subscribe/unsubscribe. i realize that sounds an awful lot like libertarianism, but I fear that group of philosophies ultimately relies on the same hope.weakness as the socialist groups of political philosophy: for any of those to work, people have to voluntarily be nice. That means don't game the system for personal gain to the greater detriment of nonself andor nontribe.

This is hard, as all known human history has documented.

Worse, there are apparently no permanent solutions. The Old Greek, Persian, Egyptian and various Roman states and societies were truly progressive in their days, but they all suffered from senescence and ultimate collapse. I wonder if I am seeing the beginnings of the brave new American experiment go the same way.

I wonder who will write our histories in 500 years. It could be self-engineered posthumans in a million small communities spread through the flatlands at the frontiers of the Solar system, or it could be monks moving quills on parchment in unheated stone fortresses in the manner of A Canticle for Leibowitz. I rather hope the former! cn
 
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