Did Capitalism Fail During the Pandemic?

Columnist Joe Nocera debates Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein.

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Did Capitalism Fail During the Pandemic?

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Joe Nocera of The Free Press and Gene Epstein of The Soho Forum debate the resolution, "Capitalism has been a key factor in leaving the United States unprepared to address the COVID-19 pandemic."

Taking the affirmative is Nocera, a columnist for The Free Press and co-author (with Bethany McLean) of The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind. His business journalism has appeared in numerous publications, including Esquire, Bloomberg, and The New York Times.

Arguing against the resolution is Epstein, the executive director of the Soho Forum. He is the former economics and books editor of Barron's, a position he left in January 2018 after a 26-year stint. He frequently appears on libertarian podcasts, especially The Tom Woods Show.

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

The only failure was us.

[American Mongrel]

Correct. Democracy failed during the pandemic.

Democracy failed “capitalism” a long time ago.

[I…….. Fudd]

Does everyone finally understand that negotiating with democrats is a waste of time and that the only path towards America’s survival is the destruction of the democrat party? If anyone disagrees with hat premise, please explain how it is wrong.

[diver64]

Indeed. Government officials for what they did and the population for not pushing back against it.

[Uncle Jay]

Fascism won during the fake COVID "crisis."

[MasterThief]

It's a mixed bag. I saw some interesting innovations and some rapid adjustments to serve public demands. Unfortunately, both government restrictions and individual/societal choices also failed to retain a good part of our economy and consolidated even more power into a handful of massive corporations.
It's difficult to say that capitalism succeeded or failed when the covid years were highly fascistic (and we aren't out of the woods yet)

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Bullshit.

Free markets thrive on so-called market failures. That's how entrepreneurs know where the opportunities are, that's how problems get fixed with solutions which work, because if one guy's trial fails, others know what not to try and take their own stab at it.

It is government which creates most modern market failures, and they do so because some bureaucrat or politician has seen an opportunity to extend their power and grow their fiefdom. The problem is, they take so long to implement their "fixes" that they are obsolete by the time begun, and they never fade away when the market no longer has any need for them.

And why do they never fade away? Because (1) no bureaucrat ever raised his salary and prestige by reducing the size of his fiefdom or budget, and (2) all those new bureaucrats who were hired to implement the program can't be fired without violating union and civil service rules, so they have gobs of idle time to find new areas to meddle.

Government is always the problem, never the solution.

[Moonrocks]

Nothing says free market like a massive, unprecedented expansion of government power.

[SRG2]

It doesn't matter. It's simply idiotic to suppose that any one political or economic system will be effective under all circumstances.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

You came sooo close.

The fastest bestest way to find what works is free markets. The slowest worstest way to find what works is to let government loose.

[SRG2]

You’re begging the question I think.

FWIW it is my view that a free market system though not a laissez-faire one has shown itself to be superior to other systems in general.

But as I am not an idiot, I don’t claim either as axiomatic truth or historical record that it is superior in all circumstances.

[Don't look at me!]

But there are many systems that fail in all circumstances.

[SRG2]

And many that fail under most, and even when they succeed, would still not fare as well as alternatives

[Sevo]

Just needed to see more of your bullshit on the screen, or did you hope there was a point?

[CE]

Hey, true communism has never been tried. Too many people starved at first, and they chickened out.

[Sevo]

The obnoxiously arrogant POS offers one more bit of idiocy.
Hint, shitbag, in many states we did not have "capitalism" or anything like "a market".

[Mother's Lament]

"It doesn’t matter."

It kind of does. I think I know why you're saying otherwise though.

[SRG2]

Why do you think I said what I said?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

It's because he thinks you're a Nazi! Duh!

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Did capitalism "fail" or did capitalism "fall"? Two different questions.

[Sevo]

It was pushed.

[Mother's Lament]

^This

"My leg was just out there, Capitalism. You're the one who decided to trip on it" - t. Government Bureaucracy

[Sevo]

Similarly, turd claimed the 2008 was a 'market failure'. Bullshit; it was simply an example of how many gov't thumbs on the scale were required to wreck it.

[I…….. Fudd]

Democrat government sabotaged capitalism.

[JeremyR]

Somehow most people got paid to stay home, business owners got loans they didn't have to pay back, and yet somehow the essential workers that kept people fed and wiping their butts with paper got nothing except the same crummy, low paid job they always had.

Can't blame capitalism.

[Vernon Depner]

Somehow most people got paid to stay home

You must live in an upper-middle-class bubble—you've got the proportions wrong. Most people continued to work. Many lost their jobs or businesses and didn't get paid. A few people with desk jobs got to stay home and get paid. A very few business owners gamed the system and come out good.

[diver64]

I don't know of any truck drivers like myself who didn't continue working 60-70hrs a week during the shut down. I do know that I got free taxpayer money from the government to try and buy my vote which I promptly put into an IRA which allowed me to get a bigger tax return the next year. I doubt I'm the only one that did this.

[CE]

Thank you for your service.

[Beezard]

I’d argue you’re missing the poor/welfare subset who made out good (temporarily and superficially). It was $1700 snow crab party for months at the grocery store I worked at.

I think essentially they tried to slip a defacto universal basic income on us. And it wrecked a lot of people psychologically as far as being willing to work. And the whole thing torpedoed the entire economy/cost of living so bad it’s hard to argue with them.

[CE]

Well, they did finally jack up the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, at least in California. Even though minimum wage jobs here were already paying 18 to 22 bucks an hour. But 30K a year wasn't enough to flip burgers, so now they've jacked it up to 40K, which used to be a good professional salary not that long ago.

[IceTrey]

We have to have capitalism for it to fail.

[Liberty_Belle]

I saw a lot of price gouging during the pandemic. A friend kept trying to convince me that price gouging is a good thing, but I can't fathom that being good. The whole point of a free market is honest competition drives prices based on supply / demand. But doesn't account for the artificial manipulation of the market, like hoarding & price fixing which fly in the face of actual supply / demand.

[Mother's Lament]

Hoarders and wreckers, those bloody Kulaks.

[Don't look at me!]

The whole point of a free market is honest competition drives prices based on supply / demand.

And when everyone suddenly demands toilet paper, what do you think happens to the price?

[Vernon Depner]

And when everyone suddenly demands toilet paper, what do you think happens to the price?

It stays the same because of anti-"gouging" laws, and so the first hoarders to get to the store get all the toilet paper.

[sarcasmic]

When there's a shortage of toilet paper it's a choice between empty shelves or expensive toilet paper. Outlaw expensive toilet paper and you get empty shelves.

[CE]

Well, convert those stimulus check to paper money, and you have something cheaper you can use.

[diver64]

Nothing much near as I could tell. There were just shortages of the product in the store. When it came in, it was sold for the same price as before and the nuts bought it all. The same amount of toilet paper was being produced during that entire farce which I know for a fact as I went into multiple plants making it to haul out to DC's. If SHTF really happened I doubt hording cases of toilet paper would be the first thing on my mind.

[CE]

The theory I read said that half the TP supply is manufactured on large rolls for office and industrial installations, and the other half on small rolls for home use, and the factories couldn't retool quickly.

Add on a few million people worried about impending shortages and buying 4 times what they normally buy, and you see the problem. The same amount of home use TP is out there, just in fewer homes.

[Sevo]

You.
Are.
Full.
Of.
Shit.
"Price gouging" is a phrase used by ignorant assholes to mean "I think it should be cheaper".

[sarcasmic]

Hoarding is a result of price controls. If vendors were legally allowed to raise prices when there were shortages, then hoarders would think twice. That would leave those goods available, albeit at a higher price, for those who really need them.

[diver64]

Not always. Hording can also be the result of mass hysteria divorced from reality much like the southern tradition of buying all the milk and bread when a snowstorm is predicted. That is what we saw with the toilet paper. There was not a shortage of production.

[sarcasmic]

Panic buying. Good point. Still I think that vendors should be able to raise prices when people come and buy everything on the shelf. But alas it's a crime.

[Liberty_Belle]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-hand-sanitiser-sell-amazon-ebay-profit-price-gouge-donate-a9404031.html

[CE]

What debate? Shutting down whole industries because someone's scared isn't capitalism, it's government responding to cries from the frightened to "do something!"

[CE]

Not to mention handing everyone a few thousand bucks to see what happens.

Or telling landlords they can't collect rent.

Or making workers stay home for two weeks if they "test positive," whether they are sick or not.

[Beezard]

I don’t know much in this crazy, crazy world. But I’m pretty sure when history books look back on the inflation, taxation, shut downs, regulations, stimulus, sanctions, war, and ESG, they’ll know exactly who was responsible: free market capitalism.

[Azathoth!!]

‘Capitalism’ cannot fail.

Because it doesn’t exist.

‘Capitalism’ is the name given to the basic mode of trade by those who abhored it in order to subvert it so that they could own everything and thereby order an impossible perfection to appear.

EVERY society is based in ‘capitalism’. People will trade goods and service, each will try to get the best deal they can. Ideally both walk away believing they have and wealth is created on both sides of the deal.

This process can be subverted.

The moment a person says ‘fair’ expel them. There are no ‘fair’ prices, there are only good and bad prices. Bad prices come in extremis.

Fair prices come at the point of the spear