^* As Noam Chomsky points out in “Unsustainable Non Development,” “the pharmaceutical corporations and others claim they need this (protection via patents and intellectual property rights) so they can recoup the costs of research and development. But have a close look. A very substantial part of the research and development is paid for by the public anyway. In a narrow sense, it’s on the order of 40–50%. But that’s an underestimate, because it doesn’t count the basic biology and the basic science, which is all publicly funded.”