How Might Milton Friedman Respond To The COVID-19 Pandemic? (Part 1)

I have written extensively detailing my views on why conservatives are hell-bent on minimising introductions of stringent measures to retard the COVID-19 pandemic in their jurisdictions which would reduce preventable deaths.

It boils down to their political power base being the business class elite, and their greatest fear is that The Great Reset will lead to people in developed countries questioning their consumerist existence.

In my earliest writings, before a pandemic was declared, even before it was understood that the disease had escaped the biosecurity net around Wuhan, I was clear that I understood the global economic impacts would be severe (though admittedly I was a little cryptic initially – not wanting to be declared alarmist – in inferring that a depression may be the consequence).

When the rapid progression of events forced these conservative politicians to confront their cognitive dissonance, e.g. Morrison having to accept he would not be able to attend the opening week of the NRL, this fear of a depression was what gripped these conservative (mostly) men.

Such deep scarring to the psyche of people would lead to significant changes in society which leads to uncertainty for the business elites as to whether their powerful advantage would endure. At worst, for them, people might even turn away from materialistic consumerism, which had been the bedrock of their wealth and power, and people might instead place a higher importance on other aspects of their life which are not valuable or tradeable in market economies.

Moreover, if that paradigm shift were to occur it would spell the end of a political ideology espoused for decades by conservatives, and let’s face it, also espoused by many who declare themselves on the other side of the political divide, of ceaseless aspiration, which would leave a powerful and extensive global political aparatus rudderless and in search of a new narrative.

Thus this political apparatus continually pushes against introductions of stringent measures to minimise and slow their usage in an attempt to minimise that paradigm shift by people as they lose their previous habits and develop new ones, in many ways having had time and space, and in some cases sad shocks which caused them, to reflect on what it really is that enriches their lives.

For many years, and especially since the global financial crisis, this apparatus has focused on one factor perhaps above all others – confidence.

Confidence to spend. Confidence to invest. And most of all in recent decades, confidence to borrow.

As I said in “If After 30 years Of Unbroken Economic Growth Australia Can’t Afford To Protect The Most Vulnerable, Then Who Really Benefitted From That Economic Growth?“, fear of losing your own life trumps all other fears, logically. 

Thus it is impossible for people to be confident until they do not fear losing their lives. Note that this is also the finding of a report by McKinsey & Company, the premier consultancy to corporations, where they concluded that “only when the novel coronavirus is under control will economic growth resume”.

Now I realise that this political apparatus has spent a good amount of energy in misinforming and confusing people in order to pull the wool over their eyes since this pandemic began (I actually wrote that line before the WHO swung into damage control as they felt Dr. Nabarro’s comments about lockdowns were taken out of context which I will discuss in another post which I am now drafting).

However, the human reality of the pandemic continually asserts itself in a way that can not be ignored by the people no matter how much they might like to believe that they will be safe or that the risks to them are overstated by such reputable people as Dr. Fauci.

The shock that people are experiencing is real, and just as the shock from The Great Depression led to a deep scarring causing risk aversion that had repercussions even beyond that generation, these shocks are also likely to be long-lasting.

Strategists behind this political apparatus are very intelligent and sophisticated, and know that they are in a conundrum that cannot be solved.

Their political ideology and base of power will remain under threat until an effective vaccine is administered en masse, and to minimise the damage to them they will continually fight for minimal interventions (think of Tony Abbott’s views). When the sheer level of human pain forces increased measures, they will then immediately move to ruminate for rapid easing.

Everybody who genuinely believes in the primacy of protecting human life should be fighting against this apparatus, and should be prepared to continue arguing because it will not stop working to protect the privilege and power of the conservatives and elites.

In the second part of this essay I will pose the question on how might Dr. Milton Friedman, a hero to these conservative and elites, have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2020