LOCKDOWN LUNACY

摘要

IN AN INTERESTING op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Philippe Lemoine, a Cornell University Ph.D. candidate in philosophy, writes: "The coronavirus lock-downs constitute the most extensive attacks on individual freedom in the West since World War II. Yet not a single government has published a cost-benefit analysis to justify lockdown policies-something policymakers are often required to do while making far less consequential decisions. If my arguments are wrong and lockdown policies are cost-effective, a government document should be able to demonstrate that. No government has produced such a document, perhaps because officials know what it would show." There is a more-charitable explanation for their reticence: doing a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of a lockdown actually is incredibly difficult, especially before the lock-down is implemented. Libertarians, in particular, would appreciate all the uncertainties, knowledge problems, and difficulties in aggregating very subjective values at play.