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Genuine emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can be used by politics to foster particular policy goals. To avoid ‘wasting a crisis’ meant inflating the public budget, with no measures immediately related to healthcare or other social spending. In the European Union, this process took the form of the ‘Next Generation EU’ funds. Increasing public spending and borrowing is consistent with a ‘vision’ (in the terminology of Thomas Sowell) in which human beings can engineer their own society with a top-down approach and apparatus. While the pandemic was ultimately halted thanks to the automatic reaction of our immune systems, fostered by vaccinations, all the political emphasis was on policies requiring conscious action, such as business shutdowns. The pandemic’s legacy will endure in its emphasis on government action, the superior knowledge of experts, and inordinate public budgets. It is a triumph of what Sowell labelled the ‘unconstrained vision’ of humankind and the demise of the traditional role of economics in highlighting scarcity and trade-offs.
