The Case for Lockdown Reparations

 The Case for Lockdown Reparations

https://www.aier.org/article/the-case-for-lockdown-reparations/

Excerpt: Perhaps it may be difficult to make rational decisions when employing lockdown policies because decision-makers don’t have an idea of how much economic and social disruption they are causing. Emphasizing private property rights through reparations will actually allow some sort of calculation to take place. The great economist Ludwig Von Mises wrote extensively on the need for price mechanisms in economic calculation. Prices and market mechanisms play an essential role in everyday society. They are part of the reason supermarkets in the United States have endless variety and those in North Korea are empty. Reparations will introduce these essential economic mechanisms into the policymaking sphere so government actors can actually understand and make informed decisions on the tradeoffs between public safety and economic disruption. As von Mises once said: “Economic knowledge necessarily leads to liberalism”. What he meant was that understanding the market and its functions will lead to fewer interventionist policies. If governments actually had to calculate and be held accountable to lockdown policies via a system of reparations, it would probably be far more careful. Closing down the entire country would prove to be prohibitively expensive and would only be a method of last resort. As a result, the government would be forced to actually come up with evidence-based and tailored solutions that maximize overall well-being. [Whoa! This actually makes some sense. And, it would give governors fits trying to find ways around it. I give this zero chance of being passed into law unless as a citizen ballot initiative that every governor would veto, but the courts might accept, anyway, if it passes. That’d keep those bastards honest. I could support this. Ron P.]