In the world of fiction and cinema, there are quite a lot of works that describe the confrontation of a lone hero of a corporation that has put society in total dependence on itself. But what's there, another legend about Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods, to convey it to people, about the same. The noble robber, leveling social discord with the help of a knife, a gun or reverse engineering throughout the history of mankind was considered a hero. And those who earned and increased the very riches that the robber then gave to the poor (leaving, of course, a considerable part of himself), throughout the history of mankind were considered parasites, stuck to everything that you can stick to. And all the juices sucking from there.
It is interesting that the catastrophic Soviet experiment did not at all discourage the desire of modern fans of the formula "you need to take everything and share it." Motivations became different, the tools were also different, but the essence did not change. To take from the rich and give to the poor.
Here is another such case. A certain "international team of biologists" was going to create an analogue of a medicine for a rare genetic disease. A medicine is a virus that carries a gene missing from a patient. The virus is embedded in the patient’s cells and - voilà! - he gets up and goes. You can find out the details in any popular science publication, but I'm not talking about that. And about social stratification. The miracle cure is one of the most expensive in the world (yes, not the most expensive!), And one course of it costs ... a million dollars. The “International Biological Team” undertakes to guess this melody from one note. Experts have studied open publications, understood the essence and are going to create an analogue of a drug for a million. The course of a new medicine, let's call it pirate, will cost only seven thousand dollars. And the sick will rejoice.
Of course, this is not the first or second such case. Yes, all Indian pharmaceuticals manufacture counterfeit medicines. Half of the active substance drives the customer, and half to the left. And probably unfastening the customer, too (it’s no secret that the most vague ninetieth copyright holders in Russia willingly entered into a share with pirated copy dealers: it was possible to earn at least something, and zero to sell original media). The Chinese generally learned how to copy spaceships. What can we say about a piece of DNA, especially since you can order it at any commercial laboratory at a reasonable price. And can there even be at least some sympathy for ghouls requiring a million dollars per session from a sick person in a hopeless situation?
That's how it is, but, as the grandmother of Sergei Dorenko said, trochki are not. By supporting the rebellion of the noble robbers (who have now become genetic engineers) against the snickering bourgeoisie, we thereby deny the existence of the snickering ones.
But if there wasn’t a cure for a million dollars, then what would they be going to create biohackers for seven thousand? And why didn’t they create it seven thousand before the medicine for a million appeared?
This is the main paradox of social democracy. The poor live off the rich, taxing the rich with a progressive tax and imposing hellish duties on luxury goods. Well, that is, it is still unknown who sucked whom, in order to suck his juices. But let's imagine for a second that the rich once - and have disappeared. Due to what then will simple, say, European citizens live? What can we imagine, we ourselves saw all this a hundred years ago, when some noble robbers killed all the rich in the country, and then fell into starvation. And until the fall of the USSR, it was not able to provide itself with food, despite the largest territory in the world.
But the most interesting question is not even that. The most interesting question is, why is all this conditional rich? Why did a company whose name does not matter develop a drug that costs a million dollars? How many patients with a rare genetic disease in the world can pay a million? Yes, insurance companies will pay this million for patients. And do insurance companies get money from where? Of the premiums paid by the employer. From the cost of insurance purchased by a townsman for social benefits. Which is formed from taxes on the same rich. That is, in general, the same company that developed the medicine for a million will receive this million ... from its own money. And there is no sense in all this at first glance. Which, incidentally, explains the fact that the drug manufacturer for a million dollars decided not to sell it anymore, because there is no demand.
Of course, each of the conditionally wealthy people dreams of being like Steve Jobs, who made mankind buy mobile phones for a thousand dollars already when they cost fifty. But ... it will not work. Because Jobs was exactly the same robber. Just not noble. Who took other people's developments and sold them to the suffering ten to twenty times more expensive than they actually cost. And, of course, without the Xerox research center doing the same pointless things as developing a million-dollar drug, we would have neither a Macintosh, nor Windows, nor much more. Remember the name of the most authentic Hollywood movie of those times? That's right: Silicon Valley Pirates.
However, we were distracted. And the answer to the main question has not been given. So why is it rich?
And they don’t need it. Marx was wrong fundamentally. In modern social democratic society, conditional rich do not order music. They provide for the conditional poor. In modern social-democratic society, conditional rich are aphids that bees in the face of conditional poor grow in their comb in order to eat it later.
And before it is eaten, let it be so, take a picture on a yacht near Sardinia.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.