Governments and public goods -- Is there a reasonable case for government action?

I believe that there are such things as public goods--goods that we can't exclude people from, and that can be enjoyed by additional people for no or almost no cost. Such goods tend to be under provided relative to their actual value, because whenever anyone offers such a good, everyone else tries to free ride and not pay for it.

I believe that having a government is a plausible strategy for providing these goods while avoiding the free rider problem. It may not be fully voluntary, but such solutions often address situations that aren't fully voluntary either: having someone infect you with a dangerous virus is in no sense a voluntary experience.

I believe that certain public health measures in response to an epidemic may be public goods in the terms just described. But the word "may" here is crucial, and it's apt to be overlooked.

That's why I refuse to give any government carte blanche to do whatever it feels like during an emergency of this type. I've never known that to work out well before, and I have no reason to believe that will do so here.

Governments have biases that we all ought to be aware of. They favour preserving their own reputations, even perhaps at the expense of actual public health. They favour a docile citizenry. Left to its own devices, almost any government would cheerfully silence dissent. Governments generally seek, whether they say so or not, to make all of us into their obedient servants. This goal is not necessarily congruent with public health. We should therefore listen, as individuals, to what scientific researchers are saying, and evaluate government responses carefully to determine whether they are in line with scientific guidance--or whether these responses just amount to a government doing what it wanted to do anyway.

I believe that it is absolutely the proper role of a citizen of a liberal republic to undertake this type of evaluation. I wonder, though, about whether any of us is sufficiently well-informed yet.

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I can definitely imagine a pandemic in which more extreme responses are the ones that are effective. I'd just emphasize to anyone recommending them that this isn't necessarily the scenario we're facing.

On some margin, the economic and civil liberties harms being done will cause misery. And on some margin, they will also cause death. When do they begin to outweigh the misery and death that would be caused by doing less? That's very hard to say. I don't know that any ideology has a completely reliable road-map here but I discuss some of these points in one of my previous articles as linked below.

Two classic liberal notes on epidemic response