Laissez-faire = Laisser souffrir

December 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The much debunked economic theory of laissez-faire, usually translated as ‘let them be,’ meaning let those with wealth do as they will, no regulation needed has had a resurgence in the past 35 years or so.  For a while in the United States it was understood that laissez-faire was the shiny face of the coin, the other side of which was laisser-souffrir — let them suffer.  For a quick review here is Thomas O. McGarity in the NY Times.

The laissez-faire revival of the past 35 years was no accident. The protective statutes and liberal common-law doctrines of the late 1960s and early 1970s — what can be called the Public Interest Era — had a profound impact in such areas as occupational safety and health, environmental protection, consumer finance and the safety of food, drugs and consumer products. This legislative and judicial activism placed far more constraints on the economic freedom of corporate America than had any legal regime preceding it.

It also galvanized a “divert and delay” strategy of resistance by businesses, which lobbied against the new statutes and resisted the efforts of newly empowered regulators and plaintiffs. The laissez-faire revival, however, required more than resistance to change. It also took the determined efforts of a relatively small number of philanthropists and academics to create what I call an “idea infrastructure” around minimalist regulation, popularizing that ideology and persuading Congress, the executive branch, and the courts to scale back constraints on corporations.

Corporate activists — responding in part to a call to action by William E. Simon, a financier and architect of the modern conservative movement, who served as Treasury secretary under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford — devoted tens of millions of dollars to the creation of right-leaning think tanks, media operations and free-enterprise centers in academia, as well as lobbying and public relations firms and “grass-roots” (but actually business-financed) organizations.

The business community launched three frontal assaults on the regulatory agencies that Congress had created over the years to protect the American public. … read all.

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Regulations Born of Bad Behavior

October 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In an ongoing series on the drug compounding industry, appears this appalling finding:

when the F.D.A. began seeking samples to test, the trade group representing compounding pharmacists went on the offensive. Instead of encouraging members to help the agency determine if the injectable drug, used to reduce the risk of premature birth, was substandard, the group tutored pharmacists on how to sidestep requests.

In an e-mail to members, the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists suggested that they respond to any request for samples by saying, “We do not compound or distribute ‘samples’ of any of our prescription medications to anyone.” And if a compounded drug was on the premises, the trade group added, a pharmacist should say it was awaiting pickup by a patient.

…

In Texas, a hub of compounding pharmacies, random tests by the state’s pharmacy board over the last several years found that as many as one in four compounded drugs was either too weak or too strong. The testing results are just slightly better in Missouri. Potency varied by as much as 300 percent in the Missouri tests.

And records of F.D.A. drug seizures at United States borders, as well as several criminal cases, point to a link between drug compounders and Chinese manufacturers, some not registered with the F.D.A.

NO need to wonder what the Romney-Ryan position on this:  it can’t happen.  Free markets are self regulating…  To give the FDA more teeth would be to impede trade and business….

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