Journal ofEconomics and Political Economywww.kspjournals.orgVolume9March 2022Issue 1Disregard of the empirical; optimism of the will: The abandonment of good government in the covid-19 crisis

The ‘lockdown’ policy adopted in response to an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has bee n the wors t e xa mple of gove rnme nt fa ilure in pea cetime his tory. J us tifie d by the pe rce ive d gra ve emerge ncy, lockdown wa s base d on e pide miologica l a nd me dica l a dvice a t the heart of which wa s a Re port by the Impe ria l College Covid-19 Res ponse Tea m. This Re port pre dicte d 510,000 dea ths on the bas is of a bs urd ass umptions a bout a zero probability event and advocated a ‘suppression’ policy the empirica l poss ibility of imple me nting which wa s ne ver remote ly a dequa te ly as sesse d. But though it ha d conseque nces of a qua ntita tive ly differe nt orde r to other gove rnme nt fa ilures , lockdown wa s qua lita tive ly me re ly a n e xa mple of the common form of s uch fa ilure s . The work of assess ing empirica l poss ibility is ra re ly a dequa te ly a ddres se d, a nd difficultie s of implementation are dismissed by what will be called the ‘ceteris paribus reasoning’ which follows from, a s the Re port ma kes pa rticularly clea r, a n inchoa te ly communis t be lie f in politica l will.