23 April 2019 - Americans pay a lot for pharmaceuticals, and politicians of all stripes are offering prescription drug price-relief proposals to force prices downward.
Top-down approaches, though, carry a high chance of failure. We can get an inkling as to why by looking back at Roman history and surveying the contemporary landscape more closely.
In 301 AD, Roman Emperor Diocletian blamed inflation on greedy merchants. His “Edict on Maximum Prices” commanded them to lower prices and imposed the death penalty for sellers — and even buyers — who violated it. Despite the brutal power of the crown, the edict was largely ignored. Inflation rolled onward.