Short answer: No.
Firstly, neoliberalism, its politics and economics are non-empirical – they are matters of faith and ‘logic’ from faulty premises. Their position seems impossible to falsify under any circumstances, and (in complex systems) what counts as facts can be made a matter of selection and interpretation, so they can always say ‘their facts’ support them.
Secondly, a totally free market society has never existed, and probably cannot exist, therefore neoliberal advocacy for a ‘free market’ cannot be said to have anything to do with Covid, or any other project. The fact that neoliberals only ever engineer corporately controlled markets, as opposed to free markets, makes them theoretically pure.
Thirdly, if anything goes wrong in a capitalist society, Neoliberals hold it is always the fault of government, and never the fault of capitalists, corporations, or wealthy people. If such people overtly do do anything wrong or stupid, then that is because of the government (even if it was they who bought the government’s actions). As capitalism requires regulations to function and protect property distribution, there will always be government involvement of some type in the economy and daily life which can be blamed for failure.
Fourthly, there is no explicit connection between neoliberalism and Covid. Trump, who can be held responsible for denying Covid was a problem and denying help to badly affected states, was not officially a neoliberal (he even restricted trade), other than in being a corporate supremacist who helped transfer massive amounts of taxpayers’ money to the wealthy – but his followers refuse to believe that. Likewise with Boris Johnson, and Narendra Modi. We can say that governments were influenced by neoliberal ideas and thought everyone should get back to work before the problem was solved. But again this was the fault of governments, not apparently of neoliberals.
Fifthly, because of the information confusion and the pro-corporate right’s promulgation of neoliberal propaganda, Neoliberals can if they wish embrace the confusion and say Covid was just a “summer flu” or the “common cold”, and not really that bad. They can also state that any attempt to control people or slow down transmission was faulty, badly designed or an imposition on liberty, which (of course) they officially monopolise. As many people did not die from Covid, and the death figures may confuse people (there are allegations that they are faked, presumably all over the world), then they are likely to succeed – particularly given the supposed ‘common sense’ of the neoliberal backing of the corporate economy above people, and people’s dislike of being told what to do.
Sixthly, If they can convince people that Covid was the fault of governments (which it was to an extent, when governments acted in a confused or negligent manner), that the economy was seriously hurt (because the economy is the only thing that matters), that poor people were freeloading (because poor people are evil or lazy, or poor voluntarily), that private enterprise could have solved the problem quicker (because it was supposedly in their interests to solve it), and that what action was taken was tyrannous and oppressive and so on…. then it is possible we will be even worse in our preparation for the next pandemic, and less able to respond.
And that will not be the fault of neoliberals either, because it never is…….
Tags: neoliberalism, pandemic
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