»States Can't Shut Down Non-Essential Businesses Without Harming Essential Ones«

Unter diesem Artikel erschien ein lesenswerter Artikel von Eric Boehm bei reason.com

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) issued one of the more sweeping responses to the COVID-19 outbreak on Thursday evening: he ordered all "non-life-preserving" businesses in the state to close, indefinitely.

"To protect the health and safety of all Pennsylvanians, we need to take more aggressive mitigation actions," Wolf said in a statement announcing the new anti-virus measures. "We need to act with the strength we use against any other severe threat. And, we need to act now before the illness spreads more widely."

Acting "with strength" meant threatening fines, citations, and the loss of licenses to any business who defied Wolf's order for more than a day—the order to close took effect at 8 p.m. on Thursday, but enforcement would be postponed until Saturday morning, the governor's statement explained.

(Hier weiterlesen)

Im weiteren Verlauf des Artikels findet sich eine Aussage, der ich nur aus ganzem Herzen zustimmen kann:

Under the best of circumstances, policymakers suffer from what the philosopher and economist F.A. Hayek famously called "the knowledge problem." Only a price-driven market can solve the endless complex questions of what is needed where, and in what amounts. The coronavirus has crippled markets to some degree, but they are finding ways to respond. Too often, policymakers seem determined to prevent that.

That being said, I'm honestly not sure that there is a right answer to the question of how far policymakers should be willing to go in pursuit of stopping the spread of COVID-19. But it seems plausible that we're underestimating the economic damage that these statewide shutdowns will do. (Hervorhebung: LP)

So ist es! In den USA nicht weniger als bei uns in Österreich. Nur traut man sich dort, das auch zu schreiben. Bei uns wohl bald nicht mehr ...