ABSTRACT
The profit capacity of corporations depends not only on the production of value (the production of social wealth for the community) but also on their capacity to influence and shape habits of thoughts in the community in order to favor of their interests through behind-the-scenes strategies (the production of the social determinants of value). How can we understand the nature of capital accumulation in the pharmaceutical sector when investments are aimed more at transforming habits of thought and social structures than at producing therapeutically significant products? Building on Thorstein Veblen and on Sergio Sismondo’s concept of “ghost management” (2018), this chapter empirically analyzes the different types of corporate strategies for ghost-managing the social determinants of value in the pharmaceutical sector. The chapter provides an analytical framework to map the political economy of influence at work in the pharmaceutical sector by identifying seven relevant categories of corporate capture: (1) scientific capture; (2) professional capture; (3) technological capture; (4) regulatory capture; (5) market capture; (6) media capture; and (7) civil society capture. The empirical analysis of ghost management in the US pharmaceutical sector shows that the biopharmaceutical sector spends more resources on producing the social determinants of value for their products than on producing the products themselves.
