The Political Economy of Pandemic Policy, COVID-19 and Climate Change Why Market Fundamentalism and the Trump Administration Fail to Protect Public Health and the Economy PDF Download
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Author: Mark Cooper Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This paper makes a simple point about the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for many spheres of life in the 21st century. • The U.S. had one of the worst policy responses in the world to the pandemic, certainly among the large, high-income democracies, including Asian (e.g. South Korea), European (e.g. Germany), and other nations (e.g. Australia). That response was driven by a view of political economy that rejects the idea that society can impose social responsibility on its members, even under the most dire of circumstances. This political economy rests on a belief that markets perform perfectly when government gets out of the way and the pursuit of individual interests is synonymous with the public good. Currently called market fundamentalism, it was known as laissez faire economics and social Darwinism for well over a century. Examining over 120 recent historical and contemporary case studies, results of epidemiological and econometric models, and investigative analyses, this paper shows that more effective public health policy would also have been good economic policy and had better political results because the public would have been reassured and the economy could have been opened sooner. Ultimately, the costs of this policy failure can only be described as catastrophic, imposing unnecessary harms in three areas. Public Health• 120,000 deaths, • half a million hospitalizations, and • two million infections. Economic:• $7 trillion in lost output.• Trillions of dollars increased debt, and• Hundreds of millions of dollars of lost employmentPolitical:• Continuing resistance by the vast majority of the public to engaging in the activities the administration seems to value most• A preference for local officials to set policy• A collapse of public confidence in the administration to deal with the problem, and• A dramatic reduction in support for and the electability of the administration and its supporters.The policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic highlights and magnifies a much broader weakness. This paper concludes with a brief analysis of a parallel the knee-jerk, market fundamentalist response - to climate change. The 19th century view of political economy cannot cope with the challenges of the contemporary global community of over seven billion individuals in 200 nations interconnected in the biosphere (pandemic,) the atmosphere (climate change) and the economic sphere (financial, trade and recessionary meltdowns, and technology diffusion). The analysis of the climate challenge and the other global spheres where policy must be made in the face of great uncertainty points to an approach that emphasizes precaution, science, information gathering, flexibility, and cooperative governance and that recognizes both the importance and limitations of policy making authorities at the international, national, state and local levels. These are the exact opposite of the approach taken in the U.S.
Author: Mark Cooper Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This paper makes a simple point about the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for many spheres of life in the 21st century. • The U.S. had one of the worst policy responses in the world to the pandemic, certainly among the large, high-income democracies, including Asian (e.g. South Korea), European (e.g. Germany), and other nations (e.g. Australia). That response was driven by a view of political economy that rejects the idea that society can impose social responsibility on its members, even under the most dire of circumstances. This political economy rests on a belief that markets perform perfectly when government gets out of the way and the pursuit of individual interests is synonymous with the public good. Currently called market fundamentalism, it was known as laissez faire economics and social Darwinism for well over a century. Examining over 120 recent historical and contemporary case studies, results of epidemiological and econometric models, and investigative analyses, this paper shows that more effective public health policy would also have been good economic policy and had better political results because the public would have been reassured and the economy could have been opened sooner. Ultimately, the costs of this policy failure can only be described as catastrophic, imposing unnecessary harms in three areas. Public Health• 120,000 deaths, • half a million hospitalizations, and • two million infections. Economic:• $7 trillion in lost output.• Trillions of dollars increased debt, and• Hundreds of millions of dollars of lost employmentPolitical:• Continuing resistance by the vast majority of the public to engaging in the activities the administration seems to value most• A preference for local officials to set policy• A collapse of public confidence in the administration to deal with the problem, and• A dramatic reduction in support for and the electability of the administration and its supporters.The policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic highlights and magnifies a much broader weakness. This paper concludes with a brief analysis of a parallel the knee-jerk, market fundamentalist response - to climate change. The 19th century view of political economy cannot cope with the challenges of the contemporary global community of over seven billion individuals in 200 nations interconnected in the biosphere (pandemic,) the atmosphere (climate change) and the economic sphere (financial, trade and recessionary meltdowns, and technology diffusion). The analysis of the climate challenge and the other global spheres where policy must be made in the face of great uncertainty points to an approach that emphasizes precaution, science, information gathering, flexibility, and cooperative governance and that recognizes both the importance and limitations of policy making authorities at the international, national, state and local levels. These are the exact opposite of the approach taken in the U.S.
Author: Mark Cooper Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This paper provides the 3rd quarter update to an earlier analysis of the record on the first six months of the U.S. public policy response to the COVID-19 epidemic, The conclusion remains crystal clear:The U.S. had one of the worst policy responses to the pandemic in the world, certainly among large, high-income democracies, including Asian (e.g., South Korea, Japan, Taiwan), European (e.g., Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway), and other nations (e.g., Australia, New Zealand).The update has stronger findings based on new sources of data and analysis.Three months of recent data, a period that was particularly harsh in the U.S;More than doubling the number of data sources to over 350, which include reports of multinational and national public health and economic institutions, academic papers, trade association analyses, detailed accounts from investigative journalism, and dozens of publications in the field of public administration.Evaluating and incorporating the recent Woodward book (Rage).Cross-national Comparisons: Comparative cross-national studies show the heavy price of bad policies in the U.S, compared to the results achieved by others in three areas:Public Health: 200,000 avoidable deaths, six million avoidable infections and hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations.Economic: trillions of dollars of lost output and budget deficit, as well as millions of lost jobs.Political: a severely net negative perception of Trump's handling of pandemic policy at home and abroad followed by a precipitous decline in his overall job approval and deterioration of his standing in the head-to-head match-up with Biden.Misrepresenting the Research on Good Policy to Defend the U.S. Failure: The single study (the Imperial College epidemiological report to the World Health Organization) on which the Trump administration relies for its claim of 2.2 million lives saved is misread and misrepresented. The analysis focuses how good things could have been under good policy.Under the “best” policy and the spread of the virus that results from it, the study projects the number of U.S. deaths between 6,600 and 24,000 over two years, not the 230,000 that will have perished in the U.S. in less than 10 months before election day.The projected results for good policy are close to the results achieved by other nations.These results are consistent with other epidemiological studies published shortly thereafter, which were dismissed by the Trump administration and its supporters as “political hit jobs.”The Flu: The effort to excuse the poor U.S. outcome by claiming COVID is like the flu fares no better under close scrutiny.In the U.S., COVID has already killed 4 times as many Americans as the most severe flu season in the past decade and 20 times as many as in the least severe flu season in that decade. COVID has killed over twice as many as the worst flu season in the last 50 years.Globally, COVID has killed only one-twentieth as many people who died in the worst flu season ever (1918-1919). In the U.S. it has already killed about one-third as many and that number of deaths continues to rise. The world appears to have learned something the Trump administration has not.The Complete Breakdown of Public Administration - Four dozen academic papers identify the principles for sound public administration during a crisis, demonstrating the cause and effect of the complete breakdown of public administration under Trump.Woodward's book gives the “backstory” on the Trump administration's response, recounting the president's private thoughts and actions (or lack thereof),” Cooper said. “The data and policy analysis in the update give the publicly available “front-story.” They strongly agree.The Bottom Line for PolicyThe data and studies support the conclusions of others.Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, that 'Trump is his own worst enemy.”Bob Woodward, “Trump is the wrong man for the Job.”The New England Journal of Medicine, in a rare election editorial. “When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent.'”The tragic irony of the research is that the Trump administration misinterpreted and the advice of its own experts that it disregarded, is that there never was a conflict between good policy (known as non-pharmaceutical interventions) and the development of a vaccine. We could have had both, but we got neither in an avoidable year of suffering.There never was a tradeoff between public health and economic performance. Controlling the virus first was the key to minimizing its economic impact. The only conflict was between the lifecycle of the virus as dramatically altered by good policy, and the political spin cycle of the of Trump administration that undermined an effective U.S. response.Learning the lessons about how not to react to a pandemic in the biosphere is urgent, because we face an ongoing pandemic in the atmosphere, climate change, in which the Trump made exactly the same policy mistakes two years earlier.”
Author: Jonathan Michie Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1000637743 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 356
Book Description
This comprehensive book brings together research published during 2021 analysing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy – on output and employment, on inequality, and on public policy responses. The Covid-19 pandemic has been the greatest public health crisis for a century – since the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic of 1919. The economic impact has been equally seismic. While it is too early to measure the full economic cost – since much of this will continue to accumulate for some time to come – it will certainly be one of the greatest global economic shocks of the past century. Some chapters in this edited volume report on specific countries, while some take a comparative look between countries, and others analyse the impact upon the global economy. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, there had been calls for a ‘great reset’ in face of the climate crisis, the increased income and wealth inequality, and the need to avoid further global financial crisis. With the devastating Covid-19 pandemic – a harbinger for further such pandemics – there is an even greater need for a reset, and for the reset to be that much greater. The chapters in this book were originally published as special issues in the journal International Review of Applied Economics.
Author: Moosa, Imad A. Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: 1800377223 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 256
Book Description
This timely book explores the neglected risk in the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, illustrating the ways in which four decades of neoliberal economic and public policy has eroded the functional capacity of states to handle catastrophic events.
Author: Shana Kushner Gadarian Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 069121901X Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 400
Book Description
How the politicization of the pandemic endangers our lives—and our democracy COVID-19 has killed more people than any war or public health crisis in American history, but the scale and grim human toll of the pandemic were not inevitable. Pandemic Politics examines how Donald Trump politicized COVID-19, shedding new light on how his administration tied the pandemic to the president’s political fate in an election year and chose partisanship over public health, with disastrous consequences for all of us. Health is not an inherently polarizing issue, but the Trump administration’s partisan response to COVID-19 led ordinary citizens to prioritize what was good for their “team” rather than what was good for their country. Democrats, in turn, viewed the crisis as evidence of Trump’s indifference to public well-being. At a time when solidarity and bipartisan unity were sorely needed, Americans came to see the pandemic in partisan terms, adopting behaviors and attitudes that continue to divide us today. This book draws on a wealth of new data on public opinion to show how pandemic politics has touched all aspects of our lives—from the economy to race and immigration—and puts America’s COVID-19 response in global perspective. An in-depth account of a uniquely American tragedy, Pandemic Politics reveals how the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has profound and troubling implications for public health and the future of democracy itself.
Author: Tim Di Muzio Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1000653919 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 291
Book Description
Covid-19 and the Global Political Economy investigates and explores how far and in what ways the Covid-19 pandemic is challenging, restructuring, and perhaps remaking aspects of the global political economy. Since the 1970s, neoliberal capitalism has been the guiding principle of global development: fiscal discipline, privatisations, deregulation, the liberalisation of trade and investment regimes, and lower corporate and wealth taxation. But, after Covid-19, will these trends continue, particularly when states are continuing to struggle with overcoming the pandemic and violating one of neoliberalism’s key principles: balanced budgets? The pandemic has exposed the fragility of the global political economy, and it can be argued that the intensification of global trade, tourism, and finance over the past 30 years has facilitated the spread of infectious diseases such as Covid-19. Therefore, economies in lockdown, jittery markets, and massive government spending have sparked interest in potentially re-evaluating certain features of the global political economy. This volume brings together leading and upcoming critical scholars in international relations and international political economy to provide novel, timely, and innovative research on how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting (and will continue to impact) the global economy in important dimensions, including state fiscal policy, monetary policy, the accumulation of debt, health and social reproduction, and the future of austerity and the fate of neoliberalism. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and experts in international relations and international political economy, as well as history, anthropology, political science, sociology, cultural studies, economics, development studies, and human geography. Chapter 8 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Author: Sean Creaven Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1003818188 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 194
Book Description
Contagion Capitalism situates the COVID-19 pandemic within the systems of global political economy and their attendant cultural modes and theorizes that these systems act as facilitators and drivers of global pandemic risk. Contagion Capitalism therefore critiques the institutionalized corporate-capitalist control of the economy, the state, and science, and the grave consequences this has on global public health policy, the ecological crisis of sustainability, and zoonotic pandemic events such as COVID-19. In doing so, this book addresses the failings of what may be termed as “state science” or “establishment science” in managing the pandemic, as personified especially by those elements of the scientific elite placed in the service of the neoliberal state. This book also explores the limitations of corporate pharmacological technoscience in safeguarding public health, arguing that “Big Pharma” offers only partial remedies for problems of human illness and well-being, poses its own dangers to public health, and obfuscates the social bases of public ill-health and of pandemic risk. Contagion Capitalism further argues that COVID-19 will not be the last or even the most dangerous such epidemiological event. This is because the social production and global dissemination of zoonotic diseases is integral to contemporary capitalism, by virtue of its instrumental mode of science, its central dynamic of production for the sake of accumulation, and the consumer mode this sustains as its own condition of existence. These are the drivers of what may be termed as zoonotic accelerationism. Contagion Capitalism will appeal to scholars in the humanities and social sciences with interests in neoliberal ideology and global political economy, and their impact upon social, political and cultural life.
Author: William Davies Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 1913380114 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 283
Book Description
A critical and evidence-based account of the COVID-19 pandemic as a political–economic rupture, exposing underlying power struggles and social injustices. The dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic represented an exceptional interruption in the routines of work, financial markets, movement across borders and education. The policies introduced in response were said to be unprecedented—but the distribution of risks and rewards was anything but. While asset-owners, outsourcers, platforms and those in spacious homes prospered, others faced new hardships and dangers. Unprecedented? explores the events of 2020-21, as they afflicted the UK economy, as a means to grasp the underlying dynamics of contemporary capitalism, which are too often obscured from view. It traces the political and cultural contours of a "rentier nationalism," that was lurking prior to the pandemic, but was accelerated and illuminated by COVID-19. But it also pinpoints the contradictions and weaknesses of this capitalist model, and the new sources of opposition that it meets. An empirical, accessible and critical analysis of the COVID economy, Unprecedented? is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the political and economic turbulence of the pandemic’s first eighteen months.
Author: Peter Herrmann Publisher: ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted both natural and juristic persons worldwide, resulting in the loss of lives and livelihoods. This unprecedented crisis has also brought attention to the importance of human rights and has changed how they are understood. The debate surrounding human rights has long been contentious, with varying perspectives on what constitutes a fundamental right and how best to protect it. However, the pandemic has highlighted the need to balance human rights with public health concerns. One of the most significant human rights issues highlighted by the pandemic is the right to health. The pandemic has exposed inequalities in healthcare systems worldwide, with some countries struggling to provide (adequate) medical care. As a result, there is a growing debate on ensuring everyone has access to healthcare, particularly during a pandemic. The right to work also emerged as another human rights issue during the pandemic. The lockdowns and business restrictions have resulted in job losses and financial difficulties for many individuals and families. This has sparked a debate on the role of governments in protecting the right to work and ensuring that individuals have a source of income during a crisis. This is especially crucial in developing countries with high unemployment and informal economic activities. The pandemic has also emphasized the importance of the right to information. Governments worldwide have had to communicate critical information on the virus to their citizens, raising questions about the role of the media and the right to access information. Social media platforms have also played a crucial role in disseminating information about the virus, raising essential questions about censorship and the need to balance freedom of expression with public health concerns. Furthermore, the pandemic has highlighted the digital divide that exists in many countries, particularly in the global south. This has impacted the ability of those in underserved communities to receive reliable pandemic-related information in a timely manner. It is crucial to note the need to bridge the gap between human rights and the economy. Establishing a cohesive relationship between human rights and the economy is essential to creating a fair and just society. By harmonizing legal and economic structures with human rights, we can generate more opportunities for success while ensuring greater resilience and the ability to cope with future pandemics. Recognizing the significance of this matter and striving towards solutions is crucial to creating a sustainable, fair, and brighter future for all. In conclusion, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed critical human rights issues that will continue to shape the debate on human rights. It has demonstrated the need to balance different rights and interests, including the right to health, work, and information, with public health concerns. It is essential to ensure that human rights are not disregarded in times of crisis and that governments take a rights-based approach to policymaking to protect everyone's rights.
Author: Mah-Hui Lim Publisher: Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute ISBN: 9789814951807 Category : COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- Languages : en Pages : 199
Book Description
"We live in paradoxical times. Traditionally, the West has led the world in theory and practice. Yet, recent developments, from COVID-19 to the storming of the US Capitol, show how lost the West has become. This loss of direction has deep roots. In their usual thoughtful and incisive fashion, Lim Mah-Hui and Michael Heng Siam-Heng, draw out the deeper origins of our current crises and show us a new way forward. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand our strange times." -- Kishore Mahbubani, founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, is the author of Has China Won? "A powerful and compelling critique of neoliberal globalization and its potentially devastating, but long underestimated, consequences for financial stability, the environment, social equity and democracy. COVID-19 has laid bare these dysfunctions and stresses. But this is not a pessimistic book. The authors argue, correctly, that we may be on the cusp of another Great Transformation. The choices we make today to make markets more resilient, improve social protection, and preserve our freedoms could lay the foundations for a sustainable globalization that works for future generations." -- Donald Low, Professor of Practice in Public Policy and Director of the Institute for Emerging Market Studies, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology "This fascinating book highlights the interplay between financial and health crises that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed. Financialized capitalism is bad for the planet, bad for human health, and creates more unequal and insecure societies. The authors make a strong and convincing case for re-embedding markets into society and finance into the real economy." --Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA "Lim and Heng's ambitious volume argues that 2020 was the year of the global 'perfect storm' of multiple crises, with the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating financial, economic, socio-political and environmental breakdowns. They extend Karl Polanyi's original insights to appeal for a sustainable global New Deal. While the reader may not agree with all their theses, the scope of their coverage and ambition will set the stage for debates over the annus horribilis." -- Jomo K.S., Founder-chair, IDEAS www.network.ideas; former United Nations Assistant Secretary General "This book provides plenty of food for thought for many pondering if the COVID-19 crisis could lead to a major transformation of the global economic system shaped by unfettered market forces and policies of governments in their service."-- Yilmaz Akyuz, former Director, UNCTAD, Geneva
Author: Mark Cooper
Author: Mark Cooper
Author: Mark Cooper
Author: Jonathan Michie
Author: Moosa, Imad A.
Author: Shana Kushner Gadarian
Author: Tim Di Muzio
Author: Sean Creaven
Author: William Davies
Author: Peter Herrmann
Author: Mah-Hui Lim