The Western liberal democracies face a dilemma. With current measures, ’flattening the curve’ will takes months and destroy the economy. There are two options:
1. Employ ‘illiberal‘ measures, threatening ideological continuity
2. Let people die
They’re likely to choose #2.
1. Employ ‘illiberal‘ measures, threatening ideological continuity
2. Let people die
They’re likely to choose #2.
The East Asian states, which are only nominally liberal, used a playbook that got the virus under control - surveillance, isolating the infected, and screening incoming visitors/returnees - but such measures violate liberal ideology and would have to be in place long-term.
The issue here is the continuity of liberal ideology, not any substantive ‘freedoms’. Employing the ’illiberal’ measures of the East Asia states would risk ‘ideological contagion’: these methods would be normalized and employed elsewhere, threatening the hegemony of liberalism.
Liberalism has a mechanism for tackling exceptional circumstances like war or other conflicts: it characterizes them as an ideological threat (‘they hate our freedoms’). But it’s not possible to characterize the virus as an ideological threat and so use it to buttress liberalism.
An obvious issue here is that, if the virus was brought under control, the border would have to be properly secured, flights selectively screened, and people openly ‘stigmatized’ for carrying the virus, perhaps for years. This all very obviously threatens the liberal project.
