To bring back lost jobs and save our capitalist economy from collapse, do US politicians need to let COVID-19 kill people?
That's what seems to be happening right now. While public health officials like Dr. Fauci warn about the spike in coronavirus cases that will result from reopening the economy "too soon," Trump and many, many state governors are rushing to reopen fairly quickly -- to save jobs.
Aren't we basically talkling about a tragic choice here -- a "Catch-22" situation in which either choice we make is going to have really terrible side-effects? If we keep the economy shut down, or mostly shut down, to slow the virus's spread and save lives, we risk adding to his country's 14.7 percent unemployment. We risk seeing thousands and thousands of small businesses collapse across the USA.
But if we rush to reopen the economy and allow small businesses (and big businesses) to stay in operation and provide more people with jobs, we're likely to give the virus a chance to spike in numbers again -- which could mean we have to shut down the economy again later, under emergency conditions.
A liberal Nobel-Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, stated some months ago that US capitalism as it exists today "lacks an emergency brake." It just can't shut down for urgent reasons of safety without producing economic chaos. What can we do in the future to make this system more flexible and able to protect BOTH jobs and prosperity AND public health?