Is it for the best that Multi-National companies be allowed to conduct unlimited research and development?
What if important medical knowledge is discovered and patented by a greedy corporation? Looking at the fiasco with the Humane Genome Project, I think it is imperative that ownership of knowledge be put into the hands of the public.
Freedom of information is in danger of being eclipsed in the name of money and power.
Yes Meta-Gumble, I think you have a valid point there, but aren’t you concerned that you are advocating communism which in its current manifestations is equally suppressive of information?
IMHO market forces will prevail for the best.
LOL! 
I share your concerns. I will lurk and somebody will stop by with a thoughtful response soon.
No, I am no proponent of communism. In economics I favour a strong free market, but I think the law has to take into account the potential abuse of ethics by the current configuration dominant in western socio-political regimes (ie UK and America…).
Haha thanks jacksen9, for a moment I thought I was talking to myself…
We must find the right balanced approach. Profitablity should not be the only concern yet it must be factored in to the equation. Practicing medicine and creating research projects that have the potential to improve the quality of life are important and expensive undertakings. Corporations will not be eager to devote valuable resources to these tasks unless there is the possibility of profit. Yet, it seems unethical to price life-saving procedures and drugs so that they are only affordable to the wealthy.
Patent protection is only 17 years. It often takes, after the patent is applied for, 10+ years to get an idea to the stage where it can be sold. Research is very expensive. Drug companies can easily have tens of millions of dollars invested before a cent of income is seen. If there is no chance of reward few, if any, people are apt to put much into research.
Before I can debate, I apparently need some background information …
What fiasco with the Human Genome Project?
Sua
So, it would be better to not have it at all? Is that what you’re saying? Because if you leave all research to government, very little research will be done. And if you pass laws to take ‘important’ discoveries away from the discoverers, you’ll find that companies will refuse to invest millions of dollars in ‘important’ research, and instead will spend their money on harder fingernail polish and other research that is safe from government confiscation.
Also, hypothetical: how hard would it be for Megacorp, Inc. to put all of its R&D plants in friendlier countries, or Antartica?
Hey, feel free to make all the discoveries you want and turn them over to the government.
Meantime, if I work for or invest in a corporation that conducts research, I certainly expect that corporation to profit as a result, possibly increasing my salary and/or value of my equity. By the same token, if I discover something interesting, I fully expect the right to do with it as I see fit, including selling it to others at a profit.
Really?
In fact, almost all scientific research is publicly funded. Corporations do very little scientific research, for the simple reason that it is not profitable. Almost all genuine scientific research is done at universities and government labs.
Here is the interesting thing, though: Once some avenue of scientific research is found to be profitable it is handed over as a gift to private power. (Computers, aviation, electronics, etc.) That is, the public finances scientific research and takes all the risks, while private power takes the benefits.
This is shockingly wrong. It’s not even close. I suggest you go and look up how many Nobel prizes have been won by researchers working for private firms. Start with Bell Labs - up until a few years ago, AT&T invested more money in private research than the entire federal government did. That’s just ONE company.
The entire budget that can be considered ‘R&D’ is about 72 billion dollars this year. That includes NASA, the NSF, other research grants, etc. This PALES in comparison to private research spending. For example, here are what some corporations spent in 2002:
Ford Motor Co: 7.6 billion
Motorola: 6 billion
GM: 5.5 billion
Cisco: 5.3 billion
Microsoft: 5.2 billion
Intel: 5.1 billion
Total industry R&D this year will be close to 200 billion, or triple what the U.S. government is spending. Non-profit organizations and universities will spend about 15 billion more. Then there are the countless private foundations who contribute huge amounts to R&D.
You should do at least a minimum of fact-checking before making such statements. We’re here to fight ignorance, not spread it.
Well, I think the truth lies somewhere in between here. If you include all R&D research, it is apparently true (taking Sam’s numbers in faith) that industry does a lot. However, there is less and less basic research being done in industry these days. The reason is a classic market problem of a “positive externality”…Often it might pay society as a whole to do the research but because it is not always easy for an individual company to realize money from the basic research (and it would be cheaper if their competitors spent the money to do the research and they just grabbed the results), basic research tends to get underfunded in a market economy. That is why we need government labs and academia.
This isn’t to say that no basic research gets done in industry. And, certainly in the old days when companies that AT&T enjoyed a monopoly, they did a lot of basic research. Alas, Bell Labs and IBM research labs (and Exxon and Kodak and Xerox for that matter) are just not what they used to be … at least for basic research … in this competitive climate.
Sam, to amplify what jshore said, how much of the “research” that industries do is related to things like, “Do consumers prefer the door handle three inches below the window or six inches below the window?” and how much of it is research along the lines of the Human Genome Project? Personally, I think that the amount of money this country spends on research is far too small and I don’t care who does the research, so long as it’s done.
Sorry, but I don’t even buy that. Of Microsoft’s 5 billion in research spending, I’d say that probably half of it is in ‘basic’ research that won’t see the market for decades, if ever. For example, the Association for Computing Machines sponsors an annual competition for students to initiate their own fundamental research programs. Microsoft is paying for the whole thing this year. They even spend money on things like the Sloan Sky Survey.
Boeing was doing research into space planes in the 1960’s, and is currently doing research in mathematics.
The human genome was mapped by a private company.
The 3-degree background radiation in the universe was discovered by Bell Labs.
Hilton hotels is doing basic research in space materials and conditions for possible space hotel construction in the distant future.
And there are thousands of private foundations and institutions that are funding pure research.
Private funding for universities alone was 15 billion last year.
And let’s not forget that the vast majority of “R&D” that the government funds is not exactly basic research either. That 72 billion dollars, for example, includes the entire NASA budget. Despite the fact that maybe only 10% of it goes to fundamental research. The rest goes for maintenance of the shuttle, the ISS (which has been cut back precisely in the areas of basic research - there is almost no basic research component left at current staffing levels), and applied research like jet intake designs and other stuff that wouldn’t even be shown as R&D by many companies, because it’s just applied development.
If you separate out all the non-R&D spending in the ‘science’ budget of the government, you’re left with about 21 billion dollars. The top four companies alone exceed this amount.
[quote]
Really?
In fact, almost all scientific research is publicly funded. Corporations do very little scientific research, for the simple reason that it is not profitable. Almost all genuine scientific research is done at universities and government labs.
[/unquote]
What moist, dark crevice did you pull this ‘fact’ out of, Chumpsky?
Come on now, Sam. I hate to tell you but “R&D” in my company includes “applied development”. It sounds like you are using two different standards when you are calculating government and industry R&D.
And, to amplify what Tuckerfan said, the pharmaceutical companies are famous for adopting a rather broad view of “research” to include things that are really more like marketing. Where I work, I don’t think that is true for the most part…although some sort of consumer preference stuff would probably fall under R&D.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this absurdity. On the one hand, it is hilarious that you would think Ford Motor Co. does scientific research. On the other hand, it really shows how pathetic the U.S. eductation system is.
Boeing’s research is publicly funded.
True, but at the time AT&T enjoyed a state-enforced monopoly, so that they could push the cost of unprofitable research onto the consumer. Once their monopoly was broken up, Bell Labs was slashed.