By Noah Dawson
These days, libertarians such as myself get a lot of flak, with supporters of big government claiming that the flaws of libertarianism are exposed by this pandemic. In reality, I believe the opposite it true. It is big government that is standing in the way of defeating this virus, and it has done so in several ways.
First and most obviously is that the US government has actively prevented the approval of tests that helped other nations respond to the virus quickly. In the US, these ineffective regulations were one of the key roadblocks to an early response. If more people had been tested early, we would have better known where the disease was spreading and calibrated our response accordingly.
Another area that I believe government has failed: They made quarantine orders ineffective by making them too broad and too strict. Let me explain: First, it is obvious that few governments will be able to effectively maintain long term stay at home orders. Already, we are seeing some states begin to open up, and that is terrifying a lot of people. The typical response to those people seems to be that, if you are scared, stay home. There is an issue with that, though: not all people have that option. Those people still have bills to pay, and, now that businesses are opening back up, employers will likely expect employees to come back to work. Since the safety of coming back to work is essentially given a government backed seal due to the government removing stay at home orders, the negotiating position of those wishing to stay home for their own safety is directly diminished. Had the government instead strongly encouraged businesses to close and/or allow employees to work from home, there would have been less incentive to rescind orders, since no actual orders were put in place, thus giving employees greater long term leverage in making the case that they should be allowed to remain at home.
Another way the government botched the response is by picking winners and losers when it comes to which businesses are shut down, which businesses are forced to adapt to new regulations, and which businesses get bailouts. In many cases, large corporations are actively favored over small businesses, artificially distorting markets. This move is making is making it even harder for the economy to recover, harming the financial well being Americans, further inciting them to violate stay at home orders, which means that these measures could be indirectly weakening the overall response to the virus.