You’d think that the people who start and run huge businesses would be glorified in our country for their pursuit of capitalism. But whenever people make their companies “too big,” their life’s work becomes a target for critics. It happened to Standard Oil, it’s still happening to Wal-Mart, and now it’s only the beginning for the pharmaceutical industry.

The “American Dream” used to entail opening your own business, running successfully and being happy about the things you’ve done with your life.

But the dream has changed from a celebration of what we Americans have done right to an accusation of what we’ve done wrong. We can no longer celebrate everything good we’ve done because we’re too busy defending our own lives against those who say we aren’t good enough.

Now here we are — America, the Land of Passivity. Our country is beginning to become a society full of critics with no one to critique.

Maybe we’re all too scared to be critiqued by people like ourselves. We get so caught up in finding these miniscule flaws in every company and government, we don’t realize the amount of good they actually do.

“I think people are scared of failing,” said Jessica Bolitho, president of the ASU College Republicans. “Instead of encouraging people to work harder, these [government] systems hinder any greater achievements or discoveries for individuals and society.”

The battle against the pharmaceutical companies is so fierce the entire industry spent nearly $609,000 per day within the first six months of this year to influence lawmakers to vote against certain health care reformation policies, according to a Time magazine article. Many people were upset, but the industry was only standing up for itself, like many of us do day to day. We frequently see only the things people do wrong because we’re too busy taking for granted the ways in which they help the world.

We never stop to realize how much money these pharmaceutical companies give to research. According to the Congressional Budget Office, pharmaceutical companies invest as much as five times more in research than the average manufacturing firm in the United States in relation to sales.

In 2004 alone, the United States pharmaceutical industry gave 13.4 percent of its $235.4 billion in domestic sales to research and development, equaling an astounding $31.5 billion. They have no incentive to spend millions of dollars on a drug that will benefit only a handful of people, just like Burger King has no incentive to create a new meal that only I will eat.

Why they would want two drugs that only work 50 percent as well when they could spend all of their research money on one drug in order to advertise something that is 100 percent productive.

“Instead of quality, we seek quantity. It’s all material-based and it’s all too clear that we’ve lost sight about what’s truly important in life,” Bolitho said.

When the government begins to control which diseases the pharmaceutical company needs to research, there will be no incentive for individual creativity and progress.

The pharmaceutical industry offers an extremely important service, but it doesn’t mean it has a moral obligation to society. And even without this obligation, they do an incredible job for our world.

Before we begin to criticize the pharmaceutical industry, maybe we should try to close down the fast food chains and cookie companies.

Since heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, it’s almost as if these companies are doing nothing but harming us.

Compared to them, pharmaceutical companies look like angels.

And if one day the government takes over the industry and you’re sad that your ibuprofen starts to cost $30 per bottle, you can always take some Zoloft®, brought to you by a heartless pharmaceutical.

Reach Brian at brian.p.anderson@asu.edu.