And yet here we are living in times when the state is controlling our movements, shuttering businesses, defining who and what is essential, dangerously disrupting supply chains, forcibly closing schools and churches, and restricting travel. A shelter-in-place order is something of a liberal nightmare, the worst-possible use of coercive power against individual rights, and the results have been catastrophic.
It’s my view that we have been ill-prepared to deal with this onslaught. We have a very thin record of writings that make the case that freedom, market forces, and private governance are better than government quarantines and closures in dealing with pandemics. So where do we turn for better arguments and a better case?
Part of the problem is that as economists, historians, and political philosophers people are telling us to stay in our lane and not comment on medical matters. In general that is good advice. But there is a problem. The computer scientists and theoretical physicists who dreamed up this lock down haven’t really had serious medical training either and they sure haven’t stayed in their lane. They certainly have cared very little for the economic implications of their plans.
Where do we turn for competent commentary on the medical aspects of quarantine and lockdowns? Where is our credentialled and experienced expert who can provide weighty evidence that this is the wrong course?
Let me introduce you to Donald A. Henderson (1928-2016). He was the twentieth-century’s most acclaimed disease eradicator.
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