We live in Godless societies, and the worship of money in the form of gross domestic product, free trade and economic growth is all that matters to us as a collective whole. All of our politics align around this obsession. All that matters is growth in any form possible. We have cast aside all notions of family and community so as to remain in thrall to the mighty dollar. So we can buy the latest stuff.
And in doing so we have lost our humanity.
This struck me today while reading this short piece by economist Sinclair Davidson at his site, Catallaxy Files. Davidson is a man of the center-right and a libertarian to boot. But as regards the corona virus he shows disturbing signs of batting with the elite.
“The statistical value of a life in the United States, which is the average dollar value that individuals place on their own lives based on the risk‐money trade‐offs that they make, is about $10 million. Dividing the $323 billion cost of a travel and immigration ban for the first year by the $10 million statistical value of life reveals how many lives would have to be saved in the first year of such a ban so that the purely economic costs equal the benefits. Thus, a moratorium on travel and immigration would have to prevent 32,302 deaths to breakeven. This doesn’t include the cost of people being sick, which is most of COVID-19 cases, and the cost imposed on people outside of the United States as well as the long‐term costs to the U.S. economy such as lower growth and broken global supply chains.”
To be clear, that quote is from the Cato Institute. But Davidson agrees with it. He objects to the idea of closing the Australian borders so as to ensure the safety of the population because the economy will suffer.
When the elite weigh the cost of closing the borders purely in an economic sense then we have reached the point where we have most certainly lost our humanity. So according to the boffins at the Cato Institute, if under 32,000 people die then it’s not worth closing the borders because of the economic hit we will take. That’s all that counts in the scheme of things. You and I and everyone else are simply economic units. We’re not people, we’re not family members, we’re not valued members of our communities, we’re not future generations and nor are we mentors and guides for the young. We are simply worth what we can make the government in monetary value over the course of our lifetimes.
That is all we are. So they will decide whether we get to continue to live based on the economic data. That these are the same imbecilic cretins that throw trillions of dollars at attempting to stop the climate from doing what it’s always done just adds insult to viral death. They tax us into oblivion while wasting our money on socialism for illegal immigrants but when we are actually threatened by one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse then they get out their slide rules and calculators and start muttering about balance sheets and cost analysis.
Just so you know where you stand.
Of course, the elites’ assumption is that if they keep the borders open then we’ll all just continue swanning around, doing our thing, consuming like good consumers and the rats in the cage that we are. It’s ludicrous; you either protect your population or you don’t.
They haven’t been protecting us for a very long time. So no reason to change things up now.
Originally published at Pushing Rubber Downhill. You can purchase Adam’s books here.