By John F. Di Leo -
The horror in today’s news is the Coronavirus, an apparently highly-contagious illness that originated in Wuhan province, in Mainland China.
We may eventually find out for certain how it started… whether it was caught from live animals in wet markets, as the Chinese government wants us to believe, or if it was the result of biological warfare research that unintentionally (or even intentionally?) escaped the lab, as many suspect. We hope that cures and vaccines will be found quickly, though such things are woefully unpredictable.
There are, however, two critical lessons that we can already learn from this nascent pandemic, even at this early stage, and both are lessons that the American news media desperately wants to keep hidden.
First is the importance of the free market in healthcare.
The American press is cheering how quickly the Chinese are able to build new hospitals – and repurpose existing ones as emergency clinics – in response to this crisis. The Internet has gone mad with pride, sharing photos of Chinese construction crews, putting up hospitals in record time, to deal with a crisis that was, after all, caused by China too.
But what is it that races to find, produce, and distribute the cure to such illnesses? It can only be the private sector, not the government.
Sure, the government can put up clinics to house the people they made sick, and to use machines that businesses made, and to distribute drugs that businesses created.
But only the capitalist system can provide the necessary rewards to facilitate the invention and manufacture of microscopes, computers, centrifuges, and all the other magnificent equipment that enable the research and development that actually cure those diseases.
Only the private sector can produce the pharmaceutical giants that can safely mass produce antibiotics, vaccines, and other cures, often in time to stop a true pandemic from even getting a foothold in a terrified world.
As the political Left has taken over journalism, politics, the academe, and the pop culture, they are terrified that the public will see the fatal misunderstanding of the Left’s worldview for what it is.
When a cure is found, it will be the discovery of a scientist working in a lab, enabled by capitalism, but the press will find some way to give the credit to a government. It’s just what they do; it’s how they think.
The second lesson of the corona virus outbreak hit home on Friday, January 31, when the Dow tumbled 600 points, as the stock market began to appreciate the risk that the coronavirus represents.
Our world is connected more today than ever before. Economies are dependent on each other, not only for economic growth, but for life itself, as food, shelter, and the machines that power our lives are shipped all over the world, in countless millions of shipments every day.
And no country is the source of as much dependence today as China.
It is not intentional, and it is certainly not deserved, but mainland China is the source of much of the world’s manufacturing – not merely the finished products we see with “Made in China” markings, but of the components needed for the products finished elsewhere too.
If we lost the ability to import from China today, we all know that we would lose our sources for so many computers, cell phones, toys, and clothes.
But we also know that we could buy them from other countries too, for just a little more money, right? So… we would survive, right?
Sadly, no.
What the public didn’t understand until recently… until President Trump began his trade war with China, in fact… is how terribly dependent the world is on China, even for the goods that other countries manufacture.
Even the washing machines, ovens, dryers, and other products proudly made in the United States are dependent on China for some of their key components… for motors and power cords, for castings and heating elements, for nuts and bolts, for bearings and batteries… all sorts of critical but tiny parts that just didn’t seem worth cost-effective to make in the United States anymore, so the business world foolishly allowed their manufacture to gradually migrate to China.
What we have begun to realize over the last two years, to our shock, is that if we went to war with any other country on earth, our economy would survive… but if our trade with China were to stop cold, our economy too would come to a halt. We are that dependent on China’s continued output.
But it isn’t just wars that cause interruptions in trade. It’s also natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes… hurricanes and volcanic eruptions… and horrific epidemics like the Plague.
Even without a war, even without an earthquake, the Chinese economy is grinding to a halt because of this one illness. Every day, we learn of more Chinese provinces on lockdown, as the government tightens its quarantines in an effort to contain this disease.
And so, the rest of the world will suffer as well, even if the disease doesn’t spread beyond its home country at all.
All because the rest of the world has grown so dependent on China for “just in time” manufacturing.
The second lesson of the coronavirus outbreak, therefore, is that President Trump’s recognition of the world’s potentially fatal dependence on Chinese manufacturing, far from being the xenophobic bigotry that the Left claims it to be, is in fact a visionary and common-sense measure, designed to save not only the USA but the whole world from economic disaster.
Even now, less than two years into this trade war, already the President’s measures have borne fruit.
Thousands and thousands of American manufacturers today are enjoying continued delivery, on time, of the components and finished products they need, because they have already switched from their former vendors in China to new vendors elsewhere. They would not have done so without the President’s tariffs on these goods from China.
They, in particular, should be sending the president thank you cards today.
But tens of thousands of other American companies, and other companies around the world, too, are already beginning to feel the results of the coronavirus, as necessary deliveries are interrupted, delayed, for who knows how long.
Oh, yes, there are already two big lessons from this coronavirus, and they are every bit as important as the common sense basics that you hear about from the press, like practicing good hygiene and not eating wild animals from unregulated third world meat markets.
It is capitalism that deserves the credit for the thousands of illnesses that mankind has conquered in recent generations… And for capitalism to work, it must be tied to independence… both geographical and philosophical.
The United States of America must return to being the independent, libertarian nation – with limited regulation and minimal dependence on other countries – that our founding fathers intended us to be.
Copyright 2020 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicago land based trade compliance trainer, writer, and actor. His columns are regularly found in Illinois Review.
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