> It's not conspiracy thinking to look at the incentive structures within systems to predict possible negative outcomes
It is when one mischaracterizes the system.
Medical research is not an oligopoly. It is oligopolistic within some domains, but as we've seen with the Covid vaccine, there are at least four nation-state domains (e.g. Russia, China, India and "the West") operating competitively, and within those domains, there are varying degrees of competitiveness (e.g. Pfizer vs. Moderna vs. AstraZeneca).
If you have a cure to something everyone else can only treat, you'll make a money selling the cure and taking your competitors' market share. Because if you don't, they will. It's a classic cartel / prisoner's dilemma problem with the added explosive of a multi-decade patent-protected monopoly for the first mover.
It is when one mischaracterizes the system.
Medical research is not an oligopoly. It is oligopolistic within some domains, but as we've seen with the Covid vaccine, there are at least four nation-state domains (e.g. Russia, China, India and "the West") operating competitively, and within those domains, there are varying degrees of competitiveness (e.g. Pfizer vs. Moderna vs. AstraZeneca).
If you have a cure to something everyone else can only treat, you'll make a money selling the cure and taking your competitors' market share. Because if you don't, they will. It's a classic cartel / prisoner's dilemma problem with the added explosive of a multi-decade patent-protected monopoly for the first mover.