Pharmaceutical markets in India: Questioning "monopoly"

Authors

  • Stefan Ecks University of Edinburgh

Abstract

In Pharmacracy, Thomas Szasz (2001) writes against the appropriation of medicine as a tool of politics. Critical awareness should be fostered against all forms of medicalization and against state control of health. In Pharmocracy, William Faloon (2011) argues that the US healthcare market suffers from inflated prices because the FDA approval system is inefficient and needlessly restrictive. A radically free-market approach to pharmaceutical regulation and pricing would, he contends, lead to better health outcomes overall. In turn, Kaushik Sunder Rajan's Pharmocracy (2017) "coins" the same term to argue that multinational pharmaceutical companies should be prevented from establishing "hegemony": "Pharmocracy is a term I coin to refer to the global regime of hegemony of the multinational pharmaceutical industry" (p. 6). The "appropriation by health by capital" (p. 7) should be stopped. The state should not retreat, instead he wants "democratic politics to seize the state" (p. 242; which "state" is not quite clear). 

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Published

2017-05-29

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Reviews