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Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): Laissez-Faire, Laissez Mourir. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): The spread of the coronavirus epidemic around the world in the past few weeks has exposed not only differences in the lack of preparedness of various public health systems, but also differences in reactions to the crisis. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): As the epicenter of the pandemic shifts from Asia to Europe and the U.S, however, some reactions stand out among the rest in their utter disregard for human life. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): How can this idolizing of the economy over the polity – and citizens’ very survival – be possible in a democracy? Those in power [in the USA] are clearly acting in their own self-interest rather than in that of the public. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): A straightforward explanation is that the U.S. has not been a real democracy for a while, if by that term one means enacting policies in the interest of the voting majority. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): this decline has been in the works since 1980. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): To return to the virus, the U.S. may end up in a much worse place than other, poorer countries. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): Its extreme neoliberal policies of the past four decades have weakened its public health system, while also brainwashing millions of voters to see the government as the enemy. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): Thus, one of the richest countries on earth faces shortages of everything from masks, testing equipment, ventilators and even medical staff. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): Laissez-Faire, in the extreme, means Laissez-Mourir (let die): more people are left to die as public services have been savaged by years of austerity. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): Maybe now, as the dangers of infectious disease, social breakdown, and even economic meltdown occur in rich countries, people there may finally take notice. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): Austerity – the latest form of Laissez-Faire in the North – has hollowed countries’ ability to not only support the vulnerable in normal times, but even to save their lives during a pandemic. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): And while it is true that the viral infections do not discriminate by income, the poorest are most vulnerable and least equipped to cope with them, also in rich countries. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): The recent virus is a tragedy given the lives already lost and those who will die next, the economic hardship and rising unemployment, and the complete disruption of a way of life once taken for granted. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): But it is also an opportunity to remember that pushing private, economic freedoms to their limit is not without a cost. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): They come at the extent of political freedoms, public goods such as health and safety, and ironically – even at the cost of long-run economic well-being itself. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): A pandemic, like fascism, cannot be priced in by markets. It is not an externality to be internalized by a tax. It cannot be traded between those with different ‘endowments’ of the disease. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): Maggie Thatcher was wrong: there is such as a thing as society. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
Jacob Assa ( @jacob_assa): While we need to be cautious not to to curtail political freedoms, we cannot sacrifice ourselves to the short-term ‘economic freedoms’ of a minority. If we do, we are all dead, even before the long-run. https://developingeconomics.org/2020/03/31/laissez-faire-laissez-mourir/
