Tyler Cowen: evaluation

Transcript context

…When I read that post now, it seems to be a pretty clear distinction. You’re talking about the old emphasis on, as you say, “We just need to let the market go.” The argument is not, this isn’t a risk. It’s that the best way to solve it is to have the strong market response. Do you see that as being a clean line here of, when you were writing that post and you were thinking of the kinds of people who were emphasizing state capacity more and what it can do to empower individual action are exactly the people who are now arguing with each other in a libertarian community about response? I think who ended up where is 80 percent, 85 percent predictable. I would stress I’m not a big fan of lockdowns. I did think, in March, we did the right thing by closing so many things so quickly because we knew so little and had to prepare hospitals and just figure out that you can do things outside. If you’re modestly careful, it’s probably fine almost all of the time. Since then, I don’t think lockdowns have been a good idea. I think, really, lockdowns are just shifting exposure through time. What you want to do is get to the point where you are winning the war against the virus, and that you will do better with vaccines and testing. Even tracing, I have mixed feelings about. Clearly, there are countries that have done it well. I’m not sure I ever thought that would be possible in the United States. We are not a trace kind of country, and same with England. It’s just not something we’re going to be very good at. We’re too big or too complicated or too messy. We don’t even have an integrated system of national ID — which I’m fine with, by the way, that we don’t. But given that we don’t have systematic electronic medical records compatible across all systems, odds are trace was never going to work here, in my view. A childhood friend of mine and listener to the show, Paul Matzko, suggested this framing, and I’ll just provide it to you: based on the events of 2020, what are the best cases you can make for or against state capacity libertarianism? Let’s do the pro case. What is the pandemic? How does the pandemic bolster the case for state capacity libertarianism?…

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