This post was originally written in March 2020. I could not have predicted the events that followed. There are two lessons clearly visible:

1. The coronavirus crisis was handled with panic reactions, meaning that the threat was initially downplayed and later overplayed with panic reactions. 
2. The commercial interests of pharmacy defined national policies (crisis management).

A virus is a naturally evolved entity like a human. The complexity of evolution is happening on a level that cannot be reached (comprehended and managed) by any individual or even a species. We have to adapt to evolution. Each individual changes the course of evolution by adaptation, never by revolution. Governments tend to prove their reasons to exist with revolutionary actions. That is why they fail, and that is why we suffer.

 

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It all changed overnight with coronavirus entering the western hemisphere. Literary. While we freely attended sports events, gyms, operas, and shopping malls yesterday, we are in home quarantine, healthy or sick.

For most of us, measures taken by various states and local communities did not play any role. Pictures and news from the Italian media were enough to raise our preventive actions to the highest imaginable degree. But most of us are not all of us. There are only a few enough to spread the virus further, causing a pandemic situation—a crisis.

A libertarian in crisis?

This post does not intend to enter virology as I am neither a doctor nor a healthcare specialist. I want to reflect upon one already apparent reaction to the actions of various states, limiting freedom of movement for its citizens to almost the highest possible degree. Many see the apparent acceptance of such »authoritarian« measures of different countries as proof that all libertarians who fight against the overwhelming power of the state are wrong. Don’t you see, they claim, how important it would be to have a strong state? Some even proclaim the end of the libertarian movement and the capitalist economy after this coronavirus crisis.

Let me first reflect upon the crisis itself. If this is a real crisis, crisis management should, by definition, take place. Who could take such measures? As a libertarian, I would opt for one possible answer only: the state.

How can a libertarian support a strong role of the state in any situation?

According to libertarian views, explained so profoundly by Ludwig von Mises and the American Founding Fathers, civil society »constructed« a state for one reason only: to safeguard internal and external security.

All other civil issues can be managed and handled by civil society without the state’s interference in America before the 20th century. It is security only that the state should and must interfere, for one reason alone: for protection of private property of individuals a basis for any individual freedoms. It was clearly explained by the great personalities mentioned that without freedom of property, all other liberties would fall apart. The state should protect individuals from internal breaches of this rule by the police and judiciary system as much as external by the army.

Weak state paradox

But what have we experienced last month, at least in Europe? Weak responses first from the Italian and later from the Slovenian, French, German, and even Swiss governments.

Why?

They could not address the crisis because contemporary states want to manage ordinary civil society relations. Present states regulate what they should not manage (commerce, health, education, culture, etc.). For that reason, they lose the ability to handle situations for which they were established—internal and external security. They allow terrorist invasions and are incapable of handling the surprises coming with COVID-19.

The state as super-insurance

Let me make this statement clearer. As much as we have various levels of commercial insurance for our civic life, we should have one supra insurance for the cases of crisis that threatens the basis of individual freedoms and property, including the ownership of oneself. Such supra insurance is the state. Its sole function should be to collect taxes and other resources for cases like corona solely.

Should the state leave matters of civil society to civil society, it could, like good insurance companies, collect tiny premiums over a longer period to activate them in large quantities when needed. Should it not waste taxes collected for a zillion of unnecessary activities, it could super-insure now not only the health system but also the economy and individuals who will soon feel the burdens of the economic crisis.

Let me explain this through the health system. If we could insure ourselves for a predictable minor crisis in our life through commercial insurance, this would push us to behave like responsible citizens who take care of our property (our body) according to our personal risk policy.*  We should decide about our health like we choose our financial investment policies. Why should I be allowed to decide upon something less critical (money) and not something of utmost importance (health and life)? Why should someone (the state) take care of my health? Am I not adult enough to decide upon my life?

The state and black swans

On the other side, there are black swans (N.N. Taleb concept), like corona, that can happen even outside of one particular lifespan. I am prepared to super-insure myself against such black swans through an institution that is a supra-structure parallel to civil society commercial structures. They could rest in peace, or better, work only on preparation on black swans both materially and functionally. And that is also a basic description of what the crisis task force should do.

So, as a libertarian, I support a strong state for emergencies only and a non-existent state for affairs that civil society institutions can handle.

The crisis and “the crisis”

Here comes the importance of the term crisis. A crisis is an event that is to happen sooner or later but with unpredictable consequences. Crysis is manageable, but not with standard tools. Normality is and should be forgotten in times of crisis. For that reason, it is crucial to understand that crisis is, by definition, limited in time. A long-lasting crisis is not a crisis anymore; it is normality. That is why crisis measures should be severe but short-lasting.

Let me explain the time dimension through another issue that was at the top of the multinational institution, at least upon the recognition of corona: the so-called climate crisis.

Do you see a contradiction in terms? Climate crisis is »happening«from Al Gore’s prophecy some 20 years ago that we will soon die if we do not act. A crisis cannot last for 20 years; no way. 

Here, we have the same paradox of how states behave. They pump enormous resources into climate actions, typically handled by civil society. They get paid to change something that is 4,6 billion years old. Still, they do not have enough resources to handle the sole real crisis at the moment, COVID-19.

A state that manages civil issues and cannot handle a real crisis is called a totalitarian state. It was seen in Soviet Russia, for instance, that interfered in everything but crisis related to hunger that starved to death millions of Russians. We are not living in times much different from those in Soviet Russia. Our states manage everything but the current coronavirus crisis. Our states are, at least by intention, totalitarian.

Let me conclude by stressing that if you understand this post as a provocation and exaggeration, you missed the point. The situation is like explained or even worse.

 

*I’m referring to Slovenian and European welfare health systems where national (state) insurance schemes passivize individuals and traditional insurance providers.