If the response of our leaders to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates anything, it is the enduring truth and continuing relevance of the following observation made by the great mid-19th Century French liberal, Frederic Bastiat:
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all…It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. (The Law, 1850)
Here too, discourse on how to respond to this deadly virus has too often been cast in terms of those who want to “do something” and those who simply wish to let this contagion run its course. Or worse, a clash between those who truly care about their fellow citizens, and those whose only concern is filthy lucre.
While it is true that due to the existence of negative externalities, public health policy is inherently more complicated from the philosophical perspective than (say) the production of grain, this in no way dictates a centrally-planned approach. The right balance must still be found between the health benefits of extended “shelter in place” orders and the economic devastation wrought by this policy. And, it is not at all clear that the government is best equipped to make this determination for reasons already well-known to classical liberals and libertarians.
The obvious alternative is to rely on individuals to assess for themselves the risks and benefits of their activity, and to informally enforce social norms. Thus, merchants will adopt policies that will enable them to survive financially, and consumers will use their purchasing power to reward those they believe are acting responsibly and punish those who aren’t.[i] Of course there can be no assurance that a strategy that largely forswears state coercion will arrive at a better outcome than one that doesn’t, but the converse is equally true.
Indeed, I contend that our current top-down method has already gone badly astray in failing to sufficiently account for the economic damage produced by the months long cessation of activity in substantial segments of our economy, i.e. much of the service sector. There is a very good reason that automobiles are not physically limited to a top speed of 20 mph, despite the fact that such a policy would save hundreds of thousands of lives over the course of a decade. We don’t do so because the financial costs of bringing the transportation of goods and people to a crawl is simply not worth it. In other words, in all other aspects of public policy we don’t place an infinite value on human life.
In fact, the current value of a statistical life (“VSL”) in the US is in the range of $10 million. This figure is calculated on the basis of the monetary tradeoffs that people actually make to reduce their risk of death, as revealed by (for example) the purchase of safety equipment for their home or automobile. Therefore, state and federal agencies that employ cost/benefit analysis will not promulgate regulations if they fail to save the requisite number of lives as measured by this VSL standard.[ii] Although I lack technical expertise in this field, it is very difficult for me to believe, in light of the trillions of dollars in costs associated with our lock-downs, that this test has been satisfied with respect to COVID-19.
Finally, it also seems that we might rely here on a principle dear to Bastiat and to classical liberals generally; that is, the presumption of liberty. Particularly where the restrictions on our freedom to associate with others, to travel, and to conduct commerce are blatant and undeniable, while the benefits are uncertain and almost impossible to calculate, the burden of persuasion should fall on those advocating state coercion. I do not believe it has been met.
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[i] A similar dynamic arises with respect to environmental policy, including climate change, which I discuss in Chapter 8 of my Libertarian Policy in the Real World.
[ii] See Chapter 6 of my Nozick’s Libertarian Project for a discussion of how libertarians are free to use cost/benefit analysis and VSL to solve the problems of widespread but individually trivial harms, such as air pollution, and the imposition of non-consensual risk.
