By Noah Dawson

I am not of the increasingly popular belief that all the world’s epidemiologists are behind a secretive scheme to make the president look bad. The fact is, we are living through a major pandemic that is taking the lives of many. However, that does not change one key fact: Being an expert in epidemiology does not make one an expert on how to run an economy. The death toll from COVID-19 is real, but so is the death toll we will face when true economic stagnation erodes our nation’s ability to feed itself, and it’s a haunting reminder of the problems caused by central planning.

When I mention that epidemiologists don’t know how to run an economy, I do not mean that as an insult to epidemiologists. The truth is that nobody can run the economy. The wants and needs of each individual are unique and are not constant. On the aggregate, it is not just difficult to guess with precision how much of any given good will be needed by the population at any given time, it’s impossible. Even more impossible is knowing how to distribute the goods amongst the population.

In a typical market economy, this is dealt with by not having anyone trying to control the whole economy. Instead, producers and consumers interact via the price mechanism. When demand increases, sellers increase price. The increased price signals to producers to increase production and demand is met. Those producers who respond well are rewarded and those who fail to do so are punished.

But, when such operations are left up to some authority, inefficiencies will occur, and, in many cases, such inefficiencies can mean that not enough food was produced. In some cases, too much food will be produced when such resources could have gone to other essential goods where not enough was produced. And, whereas the market naturally punishes those who fail to meet market demand, central planners tend to be insulated by a wall of official bureaucracy.

When narrow questions are asked, such as how to defeat a virus, experts on the subject can give adequate answers. But the question we face is much broader than that. The question is about how we defeat the virus while minimizing the number of people who die by destroying the ability to produce and obtain life sustaining goods and services.

I don’t know the answer. I can rule out a few options. We can’t shut everything down and simply give everyone a universal basic income. Someone still needs to produce food. Someone still needs to provide medical services. We can’t have government decide what businesses are and are not essential. Each business provides its employees with the income they need to survive, and, even if government pays to keep employees they deem nonessential home, the deep interconnectedness of the modern economy means that the links between “essential” and “nonessential” business are so complex that they are literally beyond the understanding of would be central planners. One domino falling can disrupt an entire supply chain. We can’t have government coerce business into reopening, as the unchecked spread of the virus will both kill people and further derogate the economy, causing more death and pain.

When it is mentioned that we need to consider the economic consequences of quarantine, these things must be considered. The economy is more than the net worth of the ultra-wealthy. It’s your ability to obtain food and shelter. I think it is fitting to end with the following quote of Friedrich Hayek discussing the role of economics in teaching the impossibility of central planning: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”