but demanding that government shrink back as soon as the crisis had passed and return economic matters to the wisdom of the marketplace. Even in an hour of darkest need, a century-long campaign to implant the myth of the magic of the marketplace had succeeded in making government “encroachment” seem as scary as a deadly pathogen. But thecrisis has made crystal clear why some problems demand substantive governmental solutions, and why many of them can’t just be temporary.
In some countries, concentrated central power may be a threat to liberty, but the U.S. is probably not one of them, in part because the country was set up with that concern in mind. The conservative preoccupation with constraining government power has left us with a federal government that so so weak and divided that it struggles to handle big problems like Covid-19 and climate change.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how expensive overreliance on the “free” market can be. Yet, as bad as it has been, the failures of American political economy go well beyond it. In domain after domain after domain, overreliance on markets and under-reliance on government have cost the American people dearly. And this has been the case during both Democratic and Republican administrations since Bill Clinton. Consider the opioid crisis. In 2019, 49,860 Americans died of opioid overdoses.
As Thomas Piketty and others have shown, income inequality is intrinsic to capitalist systems, a result of markets working as they “should.” But blaming the problem on “capitalism” writ large hides the crucial fact that the growing inequality of the past forty years has been driven by changes in the rules of how our version of capitalism operates.
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway It was preplanned and implemented ..nothing else ..but hidden agendas ...
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway Both fake!
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway Lean supply chains are incredibly myopic
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway Sounds serious and ridiculous.
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway Not to mention one of the highest standards of living in the world. Sorry, I know everything is supposed to be a crisis but I went for a walk around my neighborhood this morning and it seemed like everything will be all right, at least for a few days.
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway Oh yeah how are the non free market countries doing in any of these?
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway So many lies in this headline
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway what a garbage
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway “Daily the poor are defrauded. New burdens and high prices are imposed. Everyone misuses the market in his own willful, conceited, arrogant way, as if it were his right and privilege to sell his goods as dearly as he pleases without a word of criticism.”
NaomiOreskes ErikMConway Oh boy AP4Liberty