(2021-03-24) The System Held

Yascha Mounk: The System Held. Some believed the covid-19 pandemic would expose the irrationality of the Western economic system. They were wrong.

The year that was supposed to showcase the frailty of the modern global economic system actually proved the astonishing resilience of welfare-state capitalism.

By contrast, supposedly competent governments failed to come to our rescue

European countries such as France and Germany also failed to put test-and-trace systems into place

To name a few of the most egregious missteps: The World Health Organization (WHO) downplayed the severity of COVID-19 for months. The CDC designed a faulty test that made the United States incapable of tracking the disease’s spread. Public-health officials on both sides of the Atlantic falsely claimed that masks did not help contain the virus. The European Union spent months negotiating with vaccine makers to save a few euros per shot, needlessly delaying the rollout of the lifesaving injections. With the exception of a few countries, including Australia and South Korea, government failure has, over the past 12 months, been the norm.

Our economic system, though, has proved remarkably resilient. The welfare state has once again showed its value. Heroic scientists have invented vaccines that will save millions of lives. Private companies are manufacturing billions of doses at record speed

To confront the enormous challenges that will face us in the coming decades—including climate change and a resurgence of authoritarianism—we have to get serious about understanding why they did so poorly.