A former hedge fund manager who bought a drug company has hiked the price of a generic drug 55x to pay for the purchase. The drug was $13.50 a dose but is now $750.00. It costs $1 to produce. The drug treats toxoplasmosis and is widely used by sufferers of AIDS.
So clearly Martin Shkreli, the capitalist in question, is all about the money. No morals. No philanthropy. In fact rather the opposite. What does that say about our society? When the winners take all? It’s not that he should be punished. It’s not that his wealth should be confiscated. It’s that we should ask ourselves what kind of civilisation we are choosing when this kind of behaviour appears “justifiable”, because it doesn’t seem just to me.
If the highest achievers, the brightest stars, the richest, the winners are only interested in taking more, shouldn’t we all wonder what morals our civilisation promotes? It’s not that people are bad – everyone’s “good”. But the result of all our choices promotes a dynamic which appears quite feudal and therefore inflexible, often unfair and probably dysfunctional. Certainly we are seeing the cracks in our civilisation – economic crisis, immigration crisis, food crisis, …
The solution? Change our choices. Each of us can make small changes which determine the shape of civilisation. What we eat, what we wear, what we consume, what we waste. Our individual behaviour results in the civilisation we have, including a hedge fund manager taking more stuff from people in already difficult circumstances.
BBC: US pharmaceutical company defends 5,000% price increase
Sign this petition now to ask Martin Shkreli to fully reverse the price increase now, and stop exploiting the sick: http://action.sumofus.org/a/martin-shkreli/