مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد مارتین شکرلی دقیقا کیست؟

مقاله سال 2016

First: Shkreli may have started a company, but he created nothing, innovated nothing, offered nothing new, and solved nothing. Instead, he repriced existing products to extort the value created by others–—the original innovators of the drugs–—at the expense of patients who needed these drugs, the insurance companies that paid for them, and other insurance customers who will probably end up paying higher premiums as a result of Mr. Shkreli’s actions. From this point of view, Mr. Shkreli seems to be a rent-seeker: someone who seeks to acquire personal wealth without creating new wealth.

Second: The fact that patients paid exorbitantly higher prices for the same drugs neither implies that the market undervalued the drugs nor suggests that Mr. Shkreli’s actions had an equilibrating effect on the market, a key economic function often attributed to entrepreneurs. Rather, the fact that patients paid the inflated prices simply reflects Shkreli’s manipulation of a highly inelastic demand for monopolized pharmaceutical products. This brings up a significant albeit theoretical point: Scholars such as Frank Knight have long described entrepreneurs as the bearers of uncertainty. In our interpretation, Mr. Shkreli faced little uncertainty because he knew that those desperate fortheirtreatments would certainly accept much higher prices.

While some may question why we refuse to label Mr. Shkreli’s actions as entrepreneurial, we argue that the distinction is important because in the public sphere it has become increasingly common to celebrate the achievements of entrepreneurs and to encourage others to follow suit. Indeed, millennials may well be the most entrepreneurial-minded generation ever, but whom do we want them to emulate?