In the following lines, I would like to explain why the role of the state is important in preventing and remedying the consequences of the COVID-19 disease pandemic and why the harsh measures of social retreat are justified in order to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the aforementioned disease.
At the time of writing, not all heads of state or government have realized that these measures are necessary and that the state has an essential role to play in implementing them. Trump has signaled that he understands the gravity of the situation only after the US has become the center of a pandemic and the most vulnerable country in the world. Bolsonaro still denies the dangers posed by the disease, so cartels are carrying out removals across Brazil. In Serbia, Vucic realized the seriousness of the situation after the initial outbursts and non-seriousness.
In a situation where leaders signal that the matter is not serious, the population does not perceive the matter as serious. Such a perception makes the problem even worse as the population loses confidence in the government, less believes in the seriousness of the situation and is less willing to follow the prescribed measures. Below, we will not talk about the way we communicate, the outbursts made in the previous days, or the search for culprits. Instead, I will try to approximate the problem we are in and clarify why the role of the state is crucial to solving it.
The problem we encountered during this pandemic belongs to the group of problems that political scientists and economists call the problem of collective action. The problem of collective action arises in situations where it is best for the community to treat all its members in the same way, but at the same time it is best for each member of the community to deviate from the prescribed behavior.
Take the prescribed removal measures as an example and imagine that everyone respects them. So no one gets out of their home except when they go to the store, pharmacy or work, everyone is at home during curfew, etc. If everyone respects these measures, is it in my interest as an individual that I respect them as well? Turns out it wasn’t. If there are no people in the park, so I go to the park, there is no chance of infecting anyone or of infecting me. We are all profitable when it comes to preventing the spread of the virus, and as an individual I have the additional benefit. My gain is reflected in the enjoyment of nature, the rays of the sun, the freedom of movement, the inhalation of fresh air. I can walk the dog, kick the basket or jog. The ideas themselves come up.
Where is the problem? The problem is when someone sees me from the window, so they think it’s not a bad idea for him to do something similar. After all, two people have enough room to not infect each other. We all remain profitable in terms of maintaining health, and the prosperous neighbor and I have the aforementioned additional gain. The trouble is, not only one or two people will think this way. A lot of people think that way and it’s nothing new. As a result, a third, fifth, seventeenth and two hundred-eighth person will take to the streets. With some of those numbers on the street, the virus starts to spread again and then we all stop being protected from the spread of the virus and the distance measures go away.
People can hardly overcome this problem alone. You cannot force your neighbors to be in their homes. Any potential contact with them is potentially dangerous to you. Sometimes you can’t force your family without using force or violating some of their rights. Sometimes you can’t, so you have to hope that they won’t infect you inside the household. The higher the number of household members, the more hopeful this is. People need help to solve the problem of collective action.
Who can help us solve this kind of problem? Science knows three candidates. One is the experience we gain through repetition, the other is leadership and the third is power that can guide people’s behavior through rewards and punishments. In this situation, only a third candidate is available to us for the following reasons.
First, repetition would imply that an event similar to this often happens to all of us, so we learned from previous experiences how we should behave. Given that the last comparable pandemic took place in 1918, almost no one on the planet remembers an event similar to this. We have to trust the words of scientists who have studied such events in the past and can apply logic and statistics to assessing potential risks. The rest of us will draw lessons from this event in the future if we survive.
Second, leadership involves the existence of an actor, a “super-citizen,” who is powerful enough to pay or otherwise compensate for the undisciplined population. Such an actor could theoretically be a health system. Unfortunately, this is not the case when it comes to this virus. We currently do not have a cure, no vaccine, and no health care system in the world has enough respirators and other resources needed for people with severe symptoms to eventually recover from it.
Finally, we are left with penalties and rewards for complying with the rules of social exclusion, or for violating those rules. Here we come to the role of the state and its monopoly on the use of force. If you ask political economists, they will tell you that the state exists to use the monopoly of force to solve the problems of collective action among its population. In this way, the state force discourages us with punishments or promised rewards from theft, fraud, personal injury, murder, etc. In this way, it solves the problems of collective action for us. This should also be the case during this pandemic.
If citizens do not find it appropriate to respect the distance measures, they endanger their lives, the lives of their loved ones and the lives of their fellow citizens. The state has a duty to prevent this, through punishment and the use of physical force. People’s lives are more important than killing boredom, sports, socializing, walking pets, religious ceremonies, and other activities that impair distancing.
The problem of collective action is particularly pronounced in people who have left with or without low-income emergency measures. In them, the incentives for non-compliance are even greater. If this situation persists, and there is every chance that it will, more and more people will run out of income. As they spend their savings, they may be forced to resort to food and medicine in illegal ways. The continuation of this scenario is social unrest and lawlessness that will be difficult and expensive to stop when it occurs.
Therefore, the state should also create “rewards” for respecting measures of social exclusion. These rewards should be social assistance, payment of part of the earnings to people who cannot work because of the pandemic, tax exemption and cheap employer loans.
By implementing the aforementioned measures, penalties and rewards, the state can and should solve the existing problem of collective action that we have in implementing the removal measures. These measures will also prevent new problems that may arise in society as a result of the state of emergency and removal measures. In this way, the state can help us survive this pandemic with as few victims of disease, famine and social conflict as possible. After all, in this way the state will justify its existence, because we cannot solve these problems without it, written by Ivan Stanojevic, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade, for Talas.
