The Lesson We Should Learn from 2020

I’ve already written a column about the best and worst developments of 2020.

But what if we wanted to identify a lesson that society should have learned from the past 12 months?

Well, there’s an obvious answer, especially for those of us with libertarian sympathies.

In a column for the Foundation for Economic Education, Professor Alexander William Salter of Texas Tech University explains that the key takeaway from 2020 is that government doesn’t work very well, especially compared to the private sector.

The disaster that was 2020 is finally over. Now it’s time for the inevitable post-mortems. …the diagnosis is straightforward. COVID-19 was going to be bad, no matter what. But the failures of big government made it much, much worse. …In particular, the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, and public teachers’ unions are the great American villains of 2020. Meanwhile, the heroes of this year are almost entirely in the private sector. From Zoom to vaccine development, Big Pharma and Big Tech—yes, you read that right—made this horrible year bearable. …For progressives and so-called “national” conservatives who support big government, 2020 represented the ultimate test for their philosophies. …Both want a big, energetic state promoting what (they believe to be) the good of the nation. Well, here was their chance for the government to shine. The result was shameful failure. The COVID-19 crisis put left-wing and right-wing statism on trial—and both were found guilty of ill-intent and gross incompetence.

Amen.

Professor Salter’s message is basically an expanded version of the “tweet of the year” I wrote about last month.

He also explains more about the villains of 2020, starting with the Centers for Disease Control.

…the CDC is the reason America lagged behind other nations for so long in terms of COVID-19 testing. We had the virus genome fully mapped in January, which enabled the rapid production of private testing kits. But the CDC forced these operations to shut down, coming up with its own test—which was flawed, and even contaminated! …On this issue alone, CDC ineptitude is likely responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. …

I agree.

He then turns his rhetorical fire on the Food and Drug Administration.

How about the FDA? It is no secret that the vaccine was delayed because it needed FDA approval. Indeed, several working vaccines could have come much earlier, were it not for our bungling bureaucrat gatekeepers.

I agree.

Last but not least, he castigates the government’s school monopoly.

…largely due to pressure from public teachers’ unions, many schools remained closed in the fall. In fact, the US was pretty much the only country to pursue the alarmist policy of keeping schools closed. The toll on school-aged children is immense, from psychological trauma to impeded learning. Low-income families were hit especially hard.

At the risk of understatement, I agree.

The bottom line is that government failed us in 2020. Over and over and over and over again.

As you might expect, though, the crowd in Washington has reached the opposite conclusion.

They mostly used the pandemic as an excuse to expand the burden of government.

Hopefully, much of the new spending will be temporary, but it goes without saying that there will be considerable pressure in Washington to extend and expand various “temporary” programs.

P.S. The secondary lesson from 2020 is that a smaller government works better than a bigger government. And the tertiary lesson is that a decentralized smaller government is best of all.

Read Full Post »