The Antinomy Between Bureaucracy and Market

One of the unassailable Truths of our age is that we need regulation of drugs and health care to keep us safe. The Thalidomide Crisis was the prime illustration of this. It was first billed as a treatment for anxiety and morning sickness. But then it turned out to cause birth defects. So we needed more regulation of drugs for medical use.

But now, according to La Wik, Thalidomide is

used to treat a number of cancers including multiple myeloma, graft-versus-host disease, and a number of skin conditions including complications of leprosy. While it has been used in a number of HIV associated conditions, such use is associated with increased levels of the virus.

Well I never! Do you know, I had never heard that Thalidomide was still in use. I thought that it had been banned forever when millions of babies were born with birth defects in 1960. Oh. La Wik says that there were only about 10,000 babies affected, "of which about 40% died around the time of birth."

So, if you don't experiment people will die of leprosy and cancer. But if you do experiment, babies may die.

Back in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis the gay community managed to roll back the prohibition on use of experimental drugs that followed the Thalidomide crisis so that HIV sufferers could try experimental drugs, even if the drug killed them.

Today we are having the same argument as the whole of the left cried "Well I Never" when President Trump boosted the idea of treating the China virus with various chloroquine cocktails. Because where were the studies? Whatabout the FDA? Wasn't the president raising false hopes?

And yet, clearly, The WHO has fallen down on the job with respect to the China virus. And so has the government of the Peoples Republic of China. And so have our native bureaucratic structures like the FDA and the HHS.

And now the FDA has approved experimental use of chloroquine cocktails for China virus treatment.

What is going on? Bureaucratic structures are designed to produce uniformity, the right answer. The elders have decided and now the plebs will follow orders. We humans are hierarchical creatures and we look to the Wise Ones to keep us safe.

But the problem is that in real life there is no one answer because all situations are different and require an ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Also there is the monkey at a typewriter notion that you will get a solution to a problem much quicker if lots of people are experimenting with different solutions.

You see the bureaucratic world-view around all the time. There is, for instance, the Bernie Sanders notion about Fidel Castro,

When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing?

This sort of thing is common among our lefty friends. They do not ask whether it worked, or whether the Castros should just have left literacy to the judgement of the Cuban people. Literacy is a Good Thing. Therefore "we" should impose it.

Just like recycling is a Good Thing. And reusable grocery bags are a Good Thing. No, wait! It turns out that reusable grocery bags are a good way of spreading germs! Like Wu Flu!

Here's a Canadian Good Little Girl that can't understand why President Trump had the My Pillow guy -- "former gambler and crack addict" -- and the CEO of Jockey underwear to the White House. They and other CEOs are getting into the mask and gown manufacturing biz for the current emergency.

Well, because, snowflake, the market comes up with a hundred different ways to solve a problem while the bureaucrats are still brewing coffee for their first interagency coordination meeting. And President Trump, by honoring the My Pillow guy and the Jockey shorts girl, is sending a message to a million entrepreneurs to get in on the action.

I get the addiction to bureaucracy and administration. It is all about the illusion of Order and safety. Go ask one of the Elders. That's a human thing that goes back for millennia. And, to be fair, in the old days you really needed to do things in the approved way, because if you didn't you would probably die of hunger.

The Zman writes that the modern obsession with safety is a girl thing. "A society dominated by women is extremely risk averse." So we stop the world, because even if one life is saved, it's worth it.

But maybe the world is safer if we allow everyone to experiment. Maybe Cuba would have a higher literacy rate today if the Cuban people had spent the last 60 years developing their own approaches to literacy instead of knuckling under to the conceit of a revolutionary cadre. Maybe we will come up with effective treatments for the China virus if we let physicians experiment with different drug cocktails, understanding that there are going to be failures.

Maybe shutting down the world economy to flatten the curve of an epidemic in order to avoid the bad vibes of "geezers on gurneys" dying in the hallways of government hospitals is a bad idea. Who knows?