Martin Shkreli is not the villain we deserve, but he is the villain we need right now. If you’re one of the everybody ever who can’t help but form a foaming rage at the mere mention of his name, announcing to the world that you hate him, with visceral, seething, inarticulate contempt, you’re a fool. You have been duped by an easy-target, auto-fellatio media crusade. We get it, it’s bad to do what he did, especially involving such big, quotable numbers, and you want to punch him in the face.
In fact, Martin Shkreli might be the only pharmaceutical CEO not motivated by greed. He could have slowly raised prices without stirring up any headline-worthy controversy, like every other multimillionaire in his position who you’ve never heard of. Corporate medicine thrives by preying on the sick, on the needy. He’s exposing a massive flaw: The fact that prices for necessities can be hiked arbitrarily, and not only buyers but lawmakers feel powerless to stop it. Congress called Shkreli in to testify before them just so they could repeatedly ask him to please stop. If congress begged me to do anything, I would respond with the same incredulous smirk that Martin Shkreli famously did. These people are legislators. Legislate. Make it so people can’t do that thing you know they shouldn’t able to do.
Medicine in America is heinously expensive across the board. The fact that Shkreli’s actions baffle and disturb congress proves they were necessary. He continues to shake up their world that they were previously pretending was fine: a massive, deeply corrupt and confusing scheme of colluding insurance and drug companies lobbying congress with the endless cash they get because congress refuses to pass any sensible regulations. The response to Shkreli’s actions only proves how overblown an obvious issue has to get for congress actually act on it. “Go back to the robber barons,” he said. “That resulted in the Sherman Act. Maybe we’ll get our own Sherman Act.”
People in his industry warned him against a dramatic price hike, not because of the moral issue of making something people need to survive way too expensive, but the issue of press; Nobody wanted him to bring any unnecessary attention to pharmaceutical practices in general.
Shkreli is dedicated to research and development for new drugs and new cures, which is where the money from the price increase is going. On top of that, he maintains that only colossal insurance companies are actually paying the $750 per pill, and that the drug is $1 for the uninsured.
The identity he creates on the internet, he admitted in an interview, is “an extremely weird form of sarcasm.” He tweets nonsensical insults at world class comedians like Stephen Colbert and Patton Oswalt and calls them “loser idiot morons” who “probably do drugs.” Uproxxxxx or upworthy or voxxx or buzzfeed or whatever then comes out with an obviously insecure article about said comedian “totally owning” Martin Shrkeli with their responses. Obviously Shkreli is not being serious. Can nobody see that? He’s playing the role of a supervillain, and people are just eating it up. He’s not even doing a good job at hiding it.
The condescending, contemptuous title placed on him by snarky media outlets, “Pharma Bro,” is a lazy misnomer. He is not a bro. Before infamy I doubt he was considered a bro by anyone ever, or even called “bro” by anyone. He’s a geek. An awkward, brainy weirdo. He never would have made it past the pledging phase for a frat. He is obviously not of the ‘Fuck Bitches, Get Money’ creed. He is a performance artist, like Shia LaBeuof or Kanye West. He is a one-of-a-kind agent of satire.
The most hated man in America bought the single copy Wu-Tang Clan album for $2 million. This is not someone who is building a well-constructed empire of greed to ensure an egregious and steadily increasing profit to himself for the rest of his life. This is someone who is fucking with you.
