3/26/2020 - Kay Coles James Townhall.com
The
debate in the United States over whether to move away from free markets and
toward socialism may change dramatically as the latest coronavirus spreads
throughout the world. That’s because in the fight against the global pandemic,
we’ll likely witness one of the most compelling arguments in our lifetimes
emerge in favor of free-market systems – and lives will be saved in the
process.
The
pandemic will demonstrate that nations with the freest markets and freest
people tend to have the health care systems with the greatest capacity to
handle such a crisis. Free-market incentives have produced health care systems
that have better capacities in terms of beds, equipment and medical personnel
to handle increased caseloads. Those incentives have also spurred innovations
that have led to some of the greatest medical advances in history.
Moreover,
nations with both private-sector companies that are financially incentivized to
work quickly for a cure, and governments willing to remove regulatory obstacles
to innovation, are more likely to develop the treatments to abate the disease
or possibly even find a cure.
Countries
with freer markets also tend to be more resilient in times of crisis and more
capable of handling external shocks. Thanks to their free-market incentives as
well as the flexibility to respond to changing conditions that comes with less
government central planning, they have the widest availability of food,
medicine, and other crucial necessities.
This
is not conjecture. The Heritage Foundation’s annual “Index of
Economic Freedom,” the latest edition of which was released just days ago,
provides the indisputable data showing that citizens who live in nations with
greater economic freedom have better health outcomes overall.
Economic
freedom is represented by a variety of factors such as smaller, less intrusive
government; lower taxes; reduced regulations on people and businesses; an
environment that makes it easier for average citizens to start or operate a
business; and the protection of private property rights, including protections
like patents for new innovations.
The
index has measured economic freedom in approximately 180 countries around the
world for the last 26 years and shows that greater economic freedom has
decreased poverty, created more prosperous economies, and increased positive
health outcomes and life expectancies across the globe. Greater economic
freedom has led to better health care systems, better education systems, a
greater abundance of food, cleaner environments, and a higher quality of life
for citizens.
Recently,
Heritage Foundation researchers put the Index of Economic Freedom side-by-side
with the Johns Hopkins’ Global Health Security Index, which measures countries’
capabilities to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats. Not
surprisingly, they found a high correlation between economic freedom and health
security.
Countries
that Heritage ranked as “free” or “mostly free” in the economic freedom index
also tended to score the highest on the health security index, while countries
ranked as “mostly unfree” or “repressed” tended to score the lowest, indicating
a poor ability to respond to infectious diseases.
In
the coming months, we will be watching how countries across the economic
freedom spectrum respond to the coronavirus pandemic. I have little doubt that
we’ll see it’s the world’s freest nations that will do the best job of finding
treatments and possibly a cure. Ultimately, their medical advances will be
shared with all nations and used to save lives around the world.
That
isn’t gloating; that is a sincere hope that such a critical demonstration of
the power of economic freedom will encourage every nation to adopt more
free-market approaches so that their citizens don’t just overcome this
pandemic, but go on to live longer, healthier, and more prosperous lives.
It’s
also my hope that some in our own government learn these lessons as well and
don’t use this crisis as an opportunity to erode our personal and economic
freedoms and push for spending free-for-alls. Any legislation to address the
crisis must be targeted to the people who actually need it, temporary for only
as long as the crisis lasts, and transparent – directed at fighting the
coronavirus and aiding public health, not aiding special interests.
That
is how we will emerge from this pandemic stronger than we were before.
Kay
C. James is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
No comments:
Post a Comment