BLOCK: COVID Hawks And Doves

There are two schools of thought on the Covid menace. One, the hawks. This is a dread disease. Yes, the elderly and the ill are more vulnerable than most, but, ultimately, it can affect the entire population. Therefore, very vigorous responses are justified. Certainly compulsory masking. Then, too, injections of the vaccine as the price of entry to all facilities open to the public. Even, in the extreme should matters progress so far in the negative direction, compulsory injections for all would be justified (with the exception of those who are exempt from this intrusion under doctor’s orders).

Then, there are the doves. Here, Covid is no more of a danger to the public wheal than is the common cold. Ok, maybe a tad more serious than that, but not much more so. Yes, it can prove fatal for those who are particularly vulnerable, but the same can be said for many other relatively minor disabilities. Therefore, compulsion of any sort, type or variety should be off the table.

What should be the opinion of the economist, the public policy analysist, the political theoretician on this controversy? One of the basic elements of the dismal scientist is specialization and the division of labor. Accordingly, economists and all others who utilize this discipline should maintain a dignified silence on this important matter. We have no special knowledge of this matter, qua social scientist, or even physical scientist such as a physicist. Therefore, it ill-behooves us to weigh in, especially not heavily, confidently, as if we do.

This might well have been a not unreasonable position to take during the first few months after the Covid crisis hit us. Yet, during that time, there were all sorts of commentators, holding forth, without any expertise in this matter, whatsoever. Their views were decisive, opinionated, expressed as if no other position could command the respect of any rational person. Libertarians, in particular, harshly condemned the hawk position as constituting a rights violation.

Both hawks and doves were guilty of jumping the gun in this manner. Those of us who had adopted the “wait and see” attitude articulated above were excoriated as unprincipled wishy-washy wimps.

In the event, with the advantage of hindsight and Monday morning quarterbacking, it now appears as if the doves were in the right. The extraordinary regulations imposed upon the citizenry by the government were improper, unnecessary, even harmful, in that at least some of the vaccines had harmful effects of their own.

But this is not an indictment of the hawk position. It could have been correct. Indeed, it was so in the case of Typhoid Mary. When communicable diseases are on the table, this usual abhorrence all rational men have for overweening government regulation must take a back seat.

References:

Block, Walter E. 2013. “Forced Vaccinations.” February 4;

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/block/block217.html; https://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/02/walter-e-block/forced-vaccinations/

Block, Walter E. 2020A. “A libertarian analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic.” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1; https://jls.scholasticahq.com/article/17836-a-libertarian-analysis-of-the-covid-19-pandemic?auth_token=1jZ-UoctwxQnkYZLFJZR;

https://mises.org/library/libertarian-analysis-covid-19-pandemic

Block, Walter E. 2020B. “Quarantines.” March 10;

https://www.targetliberty.com/2020/03/walter-block-on-quarantines-because-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+TargetLiberty+(Target+Liberty);

https://www.targetliberty.com/2020/03/walter-block-on-quarantines-because-of.html?fbclid=IwAR2eKAqVI1zJ-2d-aCW6IQwwJQQKRWJf_lcJsDxLHp9RIfNx-1fYuMzUrO8

Block, Walter E. 2020C. “Coronavirus Maximus: a thought experiment on forced quarantine.” May 19; https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/coronavirus-maximus-a-thought-experiment-on-forced-quarantine/

Block, Walter E. 2020D. “Vaccinations, Part II.” May 13;

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/vaccinations-part-ii/

Block, Walter E. 2022. “Covid: Punishing the Unvaccinated.” May 1;