A Free Market Is Governed By Ethan Watters s Rent Seeking...

A free market allows businesses to compete among themselves without restrictions in hopes of encouraging competitive pricing and earning honest success. In this sense, a free market is governed almost entirely by ethics. But without restrictions, businesses can choose to collectively participate in unethical actions which would make the market corrupt and faulty. As evident in Ethan Watters The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan, Michael Moss The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food, and Joseph Stiglitz s Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society, [thesis: free market operates on the choice of ethics of the businesses within the market and so becomes faulty when ethics are not followed] [for example the neglection of laws, participating in anti-competitive behavior, and manipulating ethics itself]. [faulty = overpriced products, money not going to support honest companies, etc]. [neglection of laws] [the problems of blank, blank, and blank are because the companies chose not to follow the laws/exploit the loopholes in the law] Drug companies planning on selling their SSRI drugs in Japan employed many methods to sidestep the prohibitions in Japan on marketing prescription drugs directly to the consumer (Watters 524). Such methods included buying full-page ads in newspapers in the guise of recruiting test subjects (Watters 524) as well as using the Web to circumvent direct-to-consumer advertising rules (Watters 525). This neglect to