Quotessence
Home / Authors / Thomas Pogge
Thomas Pogge

Thomas Pogge Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeoplePovertyWorldCountryIfsIncomePoorWayNeedsPopulation

Famous Thomas Pogge Quotes

“A few hundred years ago, perhaps 85 or even 90 percent of humanity lived below a standard of living that today only 40 or 45 percent fail to reach. But at that earlier time only part of this poverty could have been eradicated, and this at substantial cost not only to the pleasures of the affluent, but also to their well-being and to human culture. In our time, nearly all severe poverty could be eradicated at a cost to the affluent that is truly trivial.”

YearsHumansWellsHas BeensTodayHumanityCulturePleasurePovertyFailingCostStandardsPercentHundredYears AgoWell BeingOur TimeSevereCould Have BeenStandards Of LivingAffluent
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“You may know that in India now the Tata car is becoming all the rage; you can buy it for one lakh - $2000 dollars - it's very, very cheap. So India seems to be going the route that China went a few years ago and that developing countries all over the world seem to want to follow, namely, to rely on these personal vehicles, which is just an irrational way of organizing transport.”

KnowsWorldWayWantYearsMayCountrySeemsCarBecomingYears AgoIndiaDollarsChinaRageDevelopingRelyVehicleIrrationalRoutesTransportDeveloping CountriesTata
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“I think one big improvement would be if we somehow made it cheaper and easier for developing countries to learn from the sad experience of some of the developed countries, and also from some of the positive experiences we have of building good transportation systems, like high-speed rail.”

IfsThinkingMadeCountryBigsWould BeBuildingEasierSpeedImprovementMade ItDevelopingTransportationCheaperRailDeveloping CountriesHigh SpeedDeveloped CountryPositive ExperiencesHigh Speed Rail
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“We have this highly irrational system of incentivizing innovation for clean and green technologies, where we allow the innovator to have a temporary monopoly and then mark up the price of the product or sell licenses at high prices to those who want to use the kind of product that the innovator has invented. This system is collectively irrational because many people, to avoid the inflated prices of still-patented cleaner and greener technologies, opt for some older technology that is much more polluting.”

PeopleWantKindStillsUseTechnologyProductsMarkInnovationGreenSellsCleanTemporaryIrrationalLicenseMonopolyCleanersInnovatorsGreenerHigh PricesLicensesGreen Technology
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“It is irrational to charge high prices for socially valuable innovations as this guarantees that they will be underutilized. It is much better to sell them at cost and then to reward the innovator in some other way. This is not always possible, because in some cases the value of an innovation is in the eye of the beholder; it's very difficult to value how much a new Madonna song is worth, for example. But in the case of medicines, green technologies and seeds in agriculture, such an alternative reward mechanism is fairly straightforward.”

WayEyeValuesSongDifficultCasesTechnologyExampleCostInnovationGreenSellsMedicineRewardsValuableSeedsAlternativesGuaranteesMechanismAgricultureIrrationalStraightforwardInnovatorsGuarantees ThatBeholderHigh PricesEye Of The BeholderGreen Technology
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“In the domain of pharmaceuticals, we need a metric for health impact, and with this metric we can then assess the value of the introduction of a new product and pay its innovator accordingly, say on the basis of the product's measured health impact during its first ten years on the market. In exchange, innovators must of course renounce the usual rewards they are otherwise entitled to, namely the patent-protected markup on the price of their product.”

NeedsYearsFirstsValuesCoursesPayProductsTenBasesImpactRewardsUsualProtectedEntitledDomainIntroductionRenounceInnovatorsPatentsMetricsNew Products
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“With the Health Impact Fund, the innovation is paid for separately, through publicly funded health impact rewards, and the product is sold at the cost of production to all. Here, the cruel injustice of preventing the poor from buying at cost - evidenced by today's suppression of the trade in generic versions of patented medicines - would no longer be needed.”

TodayPoorProductsNeededCostPaidInnovationTradeImpactMedicineRewardsInjusticeProductionsVersionsBuyingFundPreventingSuppressionGeneric
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“You can think of the Health Impact Fund as a mechanism that would keep the benefits and burdens of pharmaceutical innovation for the affluent roughly as they are while massively reducing the burdens presently imposed upon the poor. This sounds like magic. But it really works because the current system is not Pareto efficient. It's a system that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in litigation costs and deadweight losses that HIF-registered medicines would sidestep. By avoiding these losses, the HIF reform can bring improvements all around - including for pharmaceutical innovators.”

ThinkingSoundLossPoorMagicCostBenefitsInnovationImpactDollarsMedicineIncludingCurrentsBurdenBillionsImprovementReformFundMechanismEfficientAvoidingWeight LossReducingInnovatorsAffluentPharmaceutical
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“Companies are actually much better than governments and other bureaucracies at organizing in a holistically efficient way the extremely complex path from the examination of molecules all the way to the delivery of medicines to patients. Already in the conception and selection of research projects, companies would anticipate all the challenges down the line that they will need to overcome in order to achieve actual health impact. Bureaucratic organizations, by contrast, are notoriously bad at this sort of optimizing.”

WayNeedsGovernmentOrderChallengesLinesCompanyPathAchieveProjectsResearchOrganizationOvercomingImpactMedicineComplexesPatientConceptionEfficientContrastBureaucracySelectionExaminationAnticipateDeliveryMolecules
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“To improve global health, it's not enough just to have a really good new product and to obtain marketing approval. You still need to market the product and bring it to patients, follow up, create the infrastructure, and so on - the whole pipeline, the network. That's something that companies are extremely good at: organizing a whole pipeline in a cost-effective way.”

WayNeedsStillsEnoughWholeCompanyProductsCostPatientMarketingApprovalInfrastructurePipelineNew ProductsFollow UpGlobal Health
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“You can get an ice-cold Coke for around fifty cents in most developing countries, not just in the major population centers, but at the most remote and surprising places. The logistical challenges to resupplying all these outlets are enormous - and yet, the entire system works with incredible efficiency as is confirmed by the price of the product.”

CountryChallengesProductsColdMajorsIncrediblesPopulationEnormousIceDevelopingFiftySurprisingCentsEfficiencyOutletsCokeDeveloping Countries
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“If the Health Impact Fund were to be instituted, a single company would be in charge of a medical product all the way from its conception to the health improvements realized by actual patients. The company would be paid for health impact, and it would have to arrange the entire pipeline in between - all the steps of invention, of clinical testing, of getting marketing approval in many different countries, of wholesalers and retailers and prescriptions and so on - in a holistically optimal way.”

IfsWayDifferentCountryWould BeCompanyStepsProductsPaidImpactPatientMarketingMedicalImprovementInventionFundConceptionApprovalTestingPrescriptionsClinicalsDifferent CountriesPipelineOptimalRetailers
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“Critical journalism has gone out of fashion, or rather, it has been bought out. And so, we have much less of it than we did during the Vietnam era, where there was very critical reporting on the Vietnam War and a lot of disagreement among the media. Now you find that the media are much more homogenous, converging because they all must cater to the same community of advertisers. It's sad to see.”

Has BeensWarCommunityGoneMediaFashionCriticalJournalismErasVietnamDisagreementVietnam WarAdvertisers
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“Economists operate with this image of the homo economicus, the rational economic agent, and while such agents are rare in the wider world, they are common in economics departments. Exemplifying the homo economicus paradigm, economists typically choose their research projects and hypotheses so as to promote their own careers, to maximize their lifetime income. This explains the astonishing pressures toward conformity in academic economics: how deviant views (except those by a few who have already achieved stardom) get crushed by an army of conformists.”

WorldViewsCommonCareersEconomicProjectsResearchEconomicsArmyPressureLifetimeIncomeRationalAgentsDepartmentConformityAcademicEconomistHypothesisAstonishingCrushedParadigmStardomConformistDeviants
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“Ordinary people like you and me can achieve very little on their own. We need to build support. Even if you are a thought leader and have some good ideas on how to make the world better, and even if you write five or ten books - that won't have much effect unless you have people who are willing to support your ideas.”

PeopleIfsWorldNeedsWritingLittlesBookIdeasLeaderSupportFiveAchieveEffectsWillingLike YouTenOrdinaryGood IdeasOrdinary People
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“In order to achieve something, in competition with the powerful and smartly wielded influence of corporations, we need to join forces and be as well-organized as they are. This does not come natural to us more intellectual types, as we tend to be averse to hierarchy and groupthink; we don't like to be part of anything like a disciplined and well-organized team or movement. But the alternative is to continue losing politically - which means continued failure to protect the world's poor, who are really bearing the brunt of our disorganization.”

WorldNeedsWellsMeanDoeOrderForceNaturalPoorPowerfulTeamInfluenceAchieveMovementTypeProtectIntellectualLosingCompetitionAlternativesCorporationsOrganizedHierarchyGroupthinkDisorganization
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“In order to prepare for meaningful change, we have to look at both sides of the problem. We need to examine the output of our political system, which is often very hostile to the poor abroad and hostile also to the poor and middle class domestically. And we must also look at the procedures through which this output is produced.”

NeedsLooksProblemPoliticalOrderSidesPoorClassMiddleMeaningfulMiddle ClassBoth SidesHostileProceduresPolitical SystemsOutput
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image