As the COVID-19 pandemic played out, Trump wavered on social distancing. One reason was that billionaires argued for getting back to work during the pandemic. In neutral terms, their argument was that the harm of maintaining social distance would exceed the harm caused by sending people back to work. This is a classic utilitarian approach in that the right action is the one that creates the greatest good (or the least harm). Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick advanced a similar, but much harsher argument. On his view, the damage done to the economy by trying to protect people s far outweighs the harm done by putting people at risk. He went so far as to claim that he would be willing to die for the economy and seemed willing to sacrifice other seniors as well. While this was not a mainstream view, it got some traction on Fox News. While some billionaires and Patrick acknowledge a downside to their proposals, some claimed the deaths would be good, another plus rather than a minus.
While it is tempting to dismiss the billionaires as greedy sociopaths who would sacrifice others to add to their vast fortunes, they do raise a moral problem: to what extent should some people be sacrificed for the good of others? We allowed, and rightly praised, sacrifices by health care workers, grocery store workers and many others who risked themselves for others. As with the billionaires’ argument, this can be morally justified on utilitarian grounds: the few put themselves at risk for the good of the many. They kept the rest of us alive by taking care of us, ensuring food remained available and so on. It is inarguable that these sacrifices were good, essential and heroic. It is also inarguable that some of them died because they stayed at their posts and did what must be done to keep the rest of us and our civilization alive. For essential goods and services, the risk seemed morally acceptable; especially from the viewpoint of people who were not themselves in danger. But what about the broader economy?
The billionaires were correct that a badly damaged economy would harm workers. As evidence, consider what happened to workers during the depressions and recessions inflicted upon them in the past. Things were already bad for many before the pandemic and the economic damage made things worse. As such, there was certainly a good argument for getting the economy back on track as soon as possible. But did the utilitarian argument support the billionaires’ view?
When engaging in an honest utilitarian calculation of this sort, the three main factors are values, scope and facts. In the case of the facts, one must honestly consider the consequences. The scope determines who counts when assessing the harms and benefits. The values determine how one weighs the facts, what is considered good and what is seen as bad. It is a fact that the social distancing practices did economic damage. Many people were unable to work, many businesses closed or operated at minimum levels and so on. It was also a fact that relaxed social distancing to get people back to work resulted in more infections which caused more suffering and death. The billionaires and those who disagree with them agreed on these facts; but they disagreed about matters of scope (who counts) and value (what counts more). The billionaires showed no concern for the well-being of workers and it would be absurd to think they suddenly started to care. As such, the scope of their concern was, at most, their economic class of billionaires. In terms of values, the billionaires value money, more so than the well-being of workers (otherwise they would provide better pay and benefits). As such, their argument made sense to them: relaxing the restrictions benefited them financially and the harm would, as always, be suffered by other people. Those who think that everyone counts and who value life and health over profits for billionaires saw the matter differently.
It could be objected that while the billionaires are interested in their profits, they are also correct that workers would have been hurt more by the ongoing economic damage. As such, it was right to relax the restrictions because it was also better for the workers. There are two main replies to this argument. The first reply is to argue that the billionaires were wrong in their assessment: even in their economic terms, relaxing the restrictions caused more economic damage than keeping them in place. To use an analogy, imagine a business in a large building that is on fire. One could argue that having the fire trucks pump water into the building will do a lot of damage and that the fire should be allowed to burn out while employees continue to work. But this can be countered by pointing out that allowing the building to burn will do far more damage in the long term and kill more people. As such, unless the goal is short-term profits and long-term disaster, then it would have been best to keep social distancing in place until it was medically unnecessary.
The second reply is that people suffered, as they have for a long time, because of the economic and social structures we have constructed. We had vast resources to mitigate the harm that was done—the problem is that these resources were (and are) hyper concentrated into the hands of a few and most people lacked the resources to endure the pandemic on their own (and many lacked the resources to endure “normal” life before the pandemic). The truth is that we could have gotten through the economic harm of the pandemic better if we had been more willing to share the resources and wealth that we all created. It was ironic that the billionaires had a fix on hand for many of the harms they predicted: the economic and social structures could have been radically changed for the good of us all, rather than focused on the good of the elites
The lesson I hope we learned here is that the sacrifices of those in essential areas, like those working to provide food and health care, are morally justified and laudable. Another lesson is that the sacrifices extracted from the many by the few to expand their wealth are neither justified nor laudable. What is perhaps more horrifying than the billionaires’ view that people should die for the economy is that they believe they can make such statements in public with impunity and without fear of consequences. I hope that more people will see this for what it is, and they will work to change the world. Unfortunately, many have chosen the side of the billionaires once again and now they openly rule the oligarchy of America.