«The great pandemic of 2020 has led to an extraordinary expansion of government power. Countries rushed to close their borders and half of the world’s population were forced into some sort of curfew. Millions of companies, from micropubs to mega corporations, were prohibited from carrying on business. In supposedly free and liberal societies, peaceful strollers and joggers were tracked by drones and stopped by policemen asking for their papers. It’s all in the name of defeating coronavirus; all temporary, we’re told. But it’s time to ask, just how temporary? As Milton Friedman used to warn: ‘Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme.’ (...)
These protectionist reactions to the Covid crisis are the result of a fundamental mismatch between our stone-age brains and the nature of the modern world. Instinctively rushing to put up or defend the perimeter and kill strangers made sense when the threat was a raiding band — but now?
H.L. Mencken once joked that the goal of much of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamouring for safety. He was referring to a human instinct. When we feel threatened, the danger often triggers a ‘fight or flight’ reaction, which makes us want to pick fights with scapegoats or foreigners or to hide behind walls or tariff barriers. And we start looking for the big man (or, in Scotland’s case, woman) to keep us safe. After that, few people want to be an outsider, a critic, a troublemaker. Those who protest against measures taken in the name of national safety are quickly shouted down.
But now that we’ve engaged in this massive experiment of shutting down societies and economies, surely we need a frank discussion about its merits and about whether these instincts are appropriate in a complex global economy. The enemy, after all, is a virus, not a raiding band. We shouldn’t bat away outsiders but co-operate with them in accumulating knowledge and producing solutions. (...)
How extreme will this backlash against globalisation be? From the early days of the pandemic, nativist populists were quick to argue the only way to defeat the virus was to fundamentally undermine the liberal order. Steve Bannon, a historically minded nativist, understood that a total war against the virus could usher in a new isolationist era without trade and migration. ‘Take draconian action,’ he said on his podcast in March. ‘Shut it all down.’
Even if the Covid crisis does not mean the end of globalisation, it seems inevitable that we will see greater government powers and more protectionist tendencies throughout the western world. Perhaps Britain will end up with a Brexit deal a lot less globally minded than some of its advocates imagined. The pandemic may shuffle the UK alongside Europe into a revived 1970s-style industrial policy that will reduce competitive pressure, innovation and growth. We could end up with an expansion of government size and its ‘temporary’ powers may end up permanent. Cities may live under threat of lockdown for some time. As Robert Higgs noted in his classic 1987 analysis of government expansion, Crisis and Leviathan, there is a ratchet effect. After the crisis has passed, governments yield some of their new powers, but not all. New measures set a new precedent and create new powerful constituencies. Look, for example, at the arguments to keep the furlough scheme beyond October.
And this is likely to be the case even if politicians want to return to normal. But many don’t. Why would they? When Orbán took emergency powers in June, it was underreported that at the same time he got parliament to grant him powers to impose a state of emergency if he identifies another public health threat.
But hang on, you might say, we’re living in unprecedented times — as politicians love to tell us — and they call for unprecedented action. But this pandemic is small by historical standards. Even now, the global number of deaths from Covid-19 is still lower than from the Hong Kong flu of 1968. But there was no lockdown, no mass school closures, nor did we throw ancient civil and economic liberties overboard. What’s new, this time, is our reaction, not the virus. Sooner or later we will face a worse pandemic or another devastating crisis. What would we be willing to sacrifice then?»
The Covid trap: will society ever open up again? A ‘temporary’ expansion of government power is hard to reverse, Johan Norberg
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