6 ms·

Trump gets most of the attention, but this whole pandemic has laid plain how liberal republics have been hollowed out by neoliberalism over the past few decades

by cultus 6y ago

Trump gets most of the attention, but this whole pandemic has laid plain how liberal republics have been hollowed out by neoliberalism over the past few decades. The capability for broad, fast, collective action has been all-but wiped out, even in the supposedly enlightened and well-run countries of Western Europe. The nations that defeated fascism are crippled by a far weaker threat. I can't think of another liberal democracy besides NZ that has handled COVID well, and they are a small island country. It's embarrassing, because the response has been terrible on both purely financial and humanitarian levels.

jb1991 6y ago
Iceland has done relatively well from what I've read.
- PunchTornado 6y ago
  Iceland is a remote island of 300k people with very low density. Giving it as an example is disingenuous.
  - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
    Good point regarding population density. I don't see the case for calling the GP disingenuous though.
  - kingofpandora 6y ago
    But most of the population is concentrated in a rather small area, which national-level population density statics don't capture.
- monoideism 6y ago
  Notably, and obviously, all 3 examples mentioned in this thread are islands (NZ, Aus, and Iceland). That seems like more than coincidence.
  - axolttl88 6y ago
    The ability to limit spread by controlling your border has been a factor, and that’s certainly easier for island nations. But it’s not the only factor: well-managed healthcare systems, clear government policy and action, and public support for controls are also important. e.g. - Vietnam: landlocked, populous, excellent internal response: just over 1000 cases and 35 deaths; approx. 60 active cases currently - UK + Ireland: quite frankly a bit of a mess
    - axolttl88 6y ago
      *Vietnam not landlocked; but in the middle of a very populous region
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      > - UK + Ireland: quite frankly a bit of a mess That is mostly true. However, I would note that Ireland were kinda screwed in some respects by the border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK and thus has the incredibly poor response of England and the Tories. We've definitely made a bunch of mistakes, but it would have been a lot easier to deal with Covid were it not for the border (and our vast under-investment in our health service over the last 20-30 years). It's worth noting that the UK cases are far worse than they seem, as uniquely amongst European nations, they only test symptomatic people, even though we know that asymptomatic spread is a big problem with Covid.
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    Thailand. Population 70 million. Total cases 3,743 Deaths 59
axolttl88 6y ago
Australia. After a (relatively) small second wave spike in one of the states (Victoria) which is now under control, there are very few cases of community transmission. It’s the result of a combination of: controlled island borders, unpopular but effective internal hard borders between some states, mandatory managed hotel quarantine for inbound passengers, well-executed contact tracing by health departments, broad access to PCR testing now returning results usually within 12-24 hours, and a population that’s been surprising willing to “take one for the team” and go into lockdowns and wear masks when needed.
- m0zg 6y ago
  > which is now under control Famous last words. See e.g. France.
  - baud147258 6y ago
    Was it claimed that it was under control in France? (it might have been said in the media, but I've mostly stopped following the news)
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      No, never really. What blows my mind is that the French haven't mandated work from home for all office-workers, even with the number of cases they are seeing. Essentially, the EU (in general) had a terrible first wave, and then said well we need the summer for our economies, and now we are paying the price for that.
      - m0zg 6y ago
        Except for Sweden, which pre-paid.
ch4s3 6y ago
Japan and Canada seem to have done relatively well, as have the Nordic countries (perhaps with the exception of Sweden which is TBD). The Baltic nations have done reasonably well too. Looking outside of Europe and the OECD, African democracies like Rawanda have kept the virus in check without draconian measures. Having good or at least recently tested public health infrastructure and lucking into a good head of state/governing coalition seems to be key.
- orwin 6y ago
  Japan/Korea are not as liberal as US/western europe though. And danemark/norway/sweden/finland or the baltic countries in general are more socialist that enven France, really.
  - aspratley 6y ago
    The Nordics are social democracies. Free market, liberal with a strong emphasis on social care. I'm not quite sure what your point is.
  - ch4s3 6y ago
    Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Estonia all rank higher in economic freedom than the US and have more direct democracies. The US literally wrote Japan's constitution. France stands out as having the most powerful executive branch of any of these countries.
    - jariel 6y ago
      That the US 'wrote' Japanese constitution is a technical artifact. 99% of their culture is not based on the cultural vestiges as we articulate then 'in law'. They technically have some institutions which mirror 'Western Liberal Democracy' but they are not remotely like Western nations in that sense. Taiwan, Singapore are also technically a lot like 'Western Liberal Democracies' but we can see they absolutely are not, right there in their COVID responses. They are indeed noteworthily 'different'.
      - 6y ago
black_puppydog 6y ago
I see you're getting replies that (correctly) claim there are other states that handled it well. But those are exceptions to the rule of "western societies didn't and don't handle the pandemic very gracefully." Mind you, I am not advocating to follow an authoritarian/Chinese model. But the analysis that neoliberalism (and the hyper-individualist mentality that it co-evolved with) have undermined any collective effort at containing this effectively seems valid to me, or at least worthy of discussion. Financially, we have eroded our capability to respond to this in a timely manner. Our healthcare and test/trace capabilities were simply not up to snuff, even though the people that know most about them kept sounding the alarms. Philosophically (and IMHO this is the more contestable part of my opinion) our individualist societies have eroded our capability to demand (let alone volunteer!) personal sacrifice for a collective good, even one that indirectly benefits us and our direct peers. Alas, give the developments and debate around this, I don't see anyone working through this after the fact. We'll all want to move on, forget that 2020 ever existed, and hope that economic growth will lead us into the golden twenties we've all been waiting for. This time it will definitely work and not screw us all over in the next cycle, we'll say. Or at least next time I will be on the winning side! Just you wait!
makomk 6y ago
The problem is that the definition of "handling COVID well" that everyone seems to expect is stopping it in its tracks and wiping it out, and doing that with a respiratory disease that's this infectious and has such mild symptoms for so many people falls outside the scope of what traditional pandemic planning in Western countries even tries to achieve. Bluntly, no-one knows how to do it. As far as I can tell, the conventional wisdom used to be that it's just not possible. New Zealand has some fundamental advantages that put it in a better position to achieve this than anyone else (island, long way from other countries, relatively low population) but even they're having a bit of a time sustaining it. Now, you're probably right that a few decades ago the response to something like Covid wouldn't be seen as such a disaster - but that's mostly because expectations were different back then. If you take a look at some of the flu pandemics, they were a mess in terms of things like school closures and other measures, but as far as I can tell this was just seen as normal and inevitable. (Obviously, countries which had bad experiences with SARS do have very different pandemic planning - but SARS was a much better candidate for cotainment and elimination than Covid is.)
- x3iv130f 6y ago
  I wonder if mask wearing is the biggest factor and more generally, willingness to comply with restrictions due to experiencing SARS. Japan's politicans are no less incompetent than other 1st world countries and geographically they should be much worse off but their cases are way down compared to other places.
  - makomk 6y ago
    I'm not sure Japan had a geographical disadvantage. Generally speaking, the closer countries were to Italy the worse they seemed to do at least at first, and Japan is a long way from Italy.
    - mannykannot 6y ago
      The physical-proximity model has a problem with Italy’s distance from China.
NicoJuicy 6y ago
China and their neighbors already had multiple threats of pandemics. It's quite unknown for countries far away from them, ironically US was pretty good prepared before Trump.
mannykannot 6y ago
In the US, that “the capability for broad, fast, collective action has been all-but wiped out” is not a consequence of liberalism, neo- or otherwise, but of a deliberate strategy of those most vehemently opposed to it in any form (real or imagined.)

by cultus 6y ago

jb1991 6y ago

Iceland has done relatively well from what I've read.

PunchTornado 6y ago
Iceland is a remote island of 300k people with very low density. Giving it as an example is disingenuous.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  Good point regarding population density. I don't see the case for calling the GP disingenuous though.
- kingofpandora 6y ago
  But most of the population is concentrated in a rather small area, which national-level population density statics don't capture.
monoideism 6y ago
Notably, and obviously, all 3 examples mentioned in this thread are islands (NZ, Aus, and Iceland). That seems like more than coincidence.
- axolttl88 6y ago
  The ability to limit spread by controlling your border has been a factor, and that’s certainly easier for island nations. But it’s not the only factor: well-managed healthcare systems, clear government policy and action, and public support for controls are also important. e.g. - Vietnam: landlocked, populous, excellent internal response: just over 1000 cases and 35 deaths; approx. 60 active cases currently - UK + Ireland: quite frankly a bit of a mess
  - axolttl88 6y ago
    *Vietnam not landlocked; but in the middle of a very populous region
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    > - UK + Ireland: quite frankly a bit of a mess That is mostly true. However, I would note that Ireland were kinda screwed in some respects by the border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK and thus has the incredibly poor response of England and the Tories. We've definitely made a bunch of mistakes, but it would have been a lot easier to deal with Covid were it not for the border (and our vast under-investment in our health service over the last 20-30 years). It's worth noting that the UK cases are far worse than they seem, as uniquely amongst European nations, they only test symptomatic people, even though we know that asymptomatic spread is a big problem with Covid.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  Thailand. Population 70 million. Total cases 3,743 Deaths 59

axolttl88 6y ago

Australia. After a (relatively) small second wave spike in one of the states (Victoria) which is now under control, there are very few cases of community transmission. It’s the result of a combination of: controlled island borders, unpopular but effective internal hard borders between some states, mandatory managed hotel quarantine for inbound passengers, well-executed contact tracing by health departments, broad access to PCR testing now returning results usually within 12-24 hours, and a population that’s been surprising willing to “take one for the team” and go into lockdowns and wear masks when needed.

m0zg 6y ago
> which is now under control Famous last words. See e.g. France.
- baud147258 6y ago
  Was it claimed that it was under control in France? (it might have been said in the media, but I've mostly stopped following the news)
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    No, never really. What blows my mind is that the French haven't mandated work from home for all office-workers, even with the number of cases they are seeing. Essentially, the EU (in general) had a terrible first wave, and then said well we need the summer for our economies, and now we are paying the price for that.
    - m0zg 6y ago
      Except for Sweden, which pre-paid.

ch4s3 6y ago

Japan and Canada seem to have done relatively well, as have the Nordic countries (perhaps with the exception of Sweden which is TBD). The Baltic nations have done reasonably well too. Looking outside of Europe and the OECD, African democracies like Rawanda have kept the virus in check without draconian measures. Having good or at least recently tested public health infrastructure and lucking into a good head of state/governing coalition seems to be key.

orwin 6y ago
Japan/Korea are not as liberal as US/western europe though. And danemark/norway/sweden/finland or the baltic countries in general are more socialist that enven France, really.
- aspratley 6y ago
  The Nordics are social democracies. Free market, liberal with a strong emphasis on social care. I'm not quite sure what your point is.
- ch4s3 6y ago
  Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Estonia all rank higher in economic freedom than the US and have more direct democracies. The US literally wrote Japan's constitution. France stands out as having the most powerful executive branch of any of these countries.
  - jariel 6y ago
    That the US 'wrote' Japanese constitution is a technical artifact. 99% of their culture is not based on the cultural vestiges as we articulate then 'in law'. They technically have some institutions which mirror 'Western Liberal Democracy' but they are not remotely like Western nations in that sense. Taiwan, Singapore are also technically a lot like 'Western Liberal Democracies' but we can see they absolutely are not, right there in their COVID responses. They are indeed noteworthily 'different'.
    - 6y ago

black_puppydog 6y ago

I see you're getting replies that (correctly) claim there are other states that handled it well. But those are exceptions to the rule of "western societies didn't and don't handle the pandemic very gracefully." Mind you, I am not advocating to follow an authoritarian/Chinese model. But the analysis that neoliberalism (and the hyper-individualist mentality that it co-evolved with) have undermined any collective effort at containing this effectively seems valid to me, or at least worthy of discussion. Financially, we have eroded our capability to respond to this in a timely manner. Our healthcare and test/trace capabilities were simply not up to snuff, even though the people that know most about them kept sounding the alarms. Philosophically (and IMHO this is the more contestable part of my opinion) our individualist societies have eroded our capability to demand (let alone volunteer!) personal sacrifice for a collective good, even one that indirectly benefits us and our direct peers. Alas, give the developments and debate around this, I don't see anyone working through this after the fact. We'll all want to move on, forget that 2020 ever existed, and hope that economic growth will lead us into the golden twenties we've all been waiting for. This time it will definitely work and not screw us all over in the next cycle, we'll say. Or at least next time I will be on the winning side! Just you wait!

makomk 6y ago

The problem is that the definition of "handling COVID well" that everyone seems to expect is stopping it in its tracks and wiping it out, and doing that with a respiratory disease that's this infectious and has such mild symptoms for so many people falls outside the scope of what traditional pandemic planning in Western countries even tries to achieve. Bluntly, no-one knows how to do it. As far as I can tell, the conventional wisdom used to be that it's just not possible. New Zealand has some fundamental advantages that put it in a better position to achieve this than anyone else (island, long way from other countries, relatively low population) but even they're having a bit of a time sustaining it. Now, you're probably right that a few decades ago the response to something like Covid wouldn't be seen as such a disaster - but that's mostly because expectations were different back then. If you take a look at some of the flu pandemics, they were a mess in terms of things like school closures and other measures, but as far as I can tell this was just seen as normal and inevitable. (Obviously, countries which had bad experiences with SARS do have very different pandemic planning - but SARS was a much better candidate for cotainment and elimination than Covid is.)

x3iv130f 6y ago
I wonder if mask wearing is the biggest factor and more generally, willingness to comply with restrictions due to experiencing SARS. Japan's politicans are no less incompetent than other 1st world countries and geographically they should be much worse off but their cases are way down compared to other places.
- makomk 6y ago
  I'm not sure Japan had a geographical disadvantage. Generally speaking, the closer countries were to Italy the worse they seemed to do at least at first, and Japan is a long way from Italy.
  - mannykannot 6y ago
    The physical-proximity model has a problem with Italy’s distance from China.

NicoJuicy 6y ago

China and their neighbors already had multiple threats of pandemics. It's quite unknown for countries far away from them, ironically US was pretty good prepared before Trump.

mannykannot 6y ago

In the US, that “the capability for broad, fast, collective action has been all-but wiped out” is not a consequence of liberalism, neo- or otherwise, but of a deliberate strategy of those most vehemently opposed to it in any form (real or imagined.)