For months, there have been increasing demands for waivers for the intellectual property rights to COVID vaccines. Big Pharma, the argument goes, should share its knowledge and technology with anyone who desires it. To refuse to do so is “vaccine imperialism.”
The failure to waive intellectual property rights is being blamed for the low vaccination rates in poor countries. In Africa, for example, only 6 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, has been critical of this situation, declaring that “the people of Africa cannot be blamed for the immorally low level of vaccinations available.” Guterres is wrong.
Poor countries are poor for a reason. Much of Africa has been wracked by tribalism, dictatorship, and anarchy for decades. There is little recognition of property rights, which makes production virtually impossible. The citizens of these countries must bear the consequences of the social structures that they condone and/or support. If they want the values that sustain human life, then they should demand a government that protects their right to produce. If they can’t sustain themselves, then they must rely on the generosity of others. But they have no moral right to complain when that generosity is withheld.
The demands for waivers are founded on the same premises that dominate the countries the waivers will allegedly help. Tribalism, dictatorship, and anarchy are all variations of collectivism, which holds that the individual is subservient to the group. Ayn Rand described the nature of collectivism:
Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group . . . and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force—and statism has always been the political corollary of collectivism.
Those demanding waivers want governments—not the companies who actually own the intellectual property rights to COVID vaccines—to impose the waivers. Governments have no moral right to do such a thing. But if one embraces collectivism, as most of the world does to one degree or another, sacrificing the producers of vaccines to the poor of the world is justified.
If governments do agree to waive intellectual property rights, pharmaceutical companies should refuse to turn over their knowledge and technology. They should proudly declare that the vaccines are theirs, and only they have a moral right to determine how those vaccines are traded. They have no obligation to sacrifice the values that they have created.