I am a firm supporter of the free market system, having seen how it greatly increases production in formerly central-planned economies.
In China, for example, when I served there as a diplomat in the 1980s, I saw agricultural production more than double on farms that did away with the collective system and allowed individual farmers to make their own production decisions.
Uncontrolled capitalism, however, is not always a good thing.
Take, for instance, the case of Martin Shkreli who, after taking over as CEO of a company that manufactured an essential drug for treatment of HIV, increased the price of the life-saving drug 5,000 percent. His excuse, the profits from his price gouging would enable the company to develop better antiparasitic drugs. Like many of his kind, he put profits over people. The sad thing is that he wasn’t punished for his price gouging, but was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2018, for defrauding his wealthy investors.
During his sentencing, which was not related to the price hike, the judge said that it was up to Congress to address that issue. News flash! They have yet to do anything, and some in Congress are trying to block the administration from doing anything to lower the cost of certain medications because the pharmaceutical companies object to anything that would decrease their profits.
I read a recent news article, though, that really brought home the dangers of uncontrolled capitalism. McDonald’s fast food restaurants can be found all over the world. I have to say right here, that I’m not really a big fan of overly fat hamburgers or cheeseburgers and greasy fries, but I do like the soft-serve ice cream cones.
The problem often is that at the McDonald’s near my house the ice cream machine is frequently ‘broken.’ I’d never given this much thought until I read that the McDonald’s soft serve dispensers are notorious for breaking down—on any given day, 12 percent of the thousands of these machines in the U.S. are inoperable.
They often remain so for extended periods because the company that manufactures them has an exclusive repair contract with McDonald’s, and if their technicians are not available when one breaks down and a franchise uses a repair technician from some other company, the machine’s warranty is revoked.
Each machine costs $18,000, and when one breaks down, it costs $350 for every 15 minutes that one of the company’s technicians spends fixing it. The company, it’s reported, gets 25 percent of its revenue from maintenance and repair.
The U.S. Congress has been asked to pass the Freedom to Repair Act, a bill that has been stalled since 2022, which would protect franchisees and allow them freedom to choose available and less expensive repair technicians for these machines.
For a long time Apple opposed letting anyone but their techs to repair Apple products, but after a long period of stubborn opposition finally changed its tune and now supports ‘right to repair’ bills.
My final example of capitalism totally run amok is not in my home country, but in, of all places, China. A news report stated that construction workers cut a gap in China’s Great Wall to create a shortcut for their construction equipment.
The gap in this 2,000-year-old structure, the only manmade structure on Earth that can be seen from the Moon, is supposedly irreversible. This one heads my list of the absolutely incredibly evil things people will do in their quest for profits.
I support a company’s right to make a profit, but seriously, this is too much. We need to rein in rampant price gouging and fencing off necessary actions that are in place just to make a profit. Unregulated capitalism when propelled by human greed is a drain on society. It should never be allowed to come between me and my soft-serve ice cream cone. – NWI
