To put it other way, "Your government shouldn't have enough power to fight an epidemic, because that's too much power" has never been an actual argument in Korea, and (I believe) most of Asia as well. We don't want a small, underpowered government. We want a properly supervised government that uses its power to protect people.

Yeah, but speaking of it was all they did. Singapore always had an entirely dominant state, they just figured out how to brand themselves correctly. State owned businesses became 'state-linked', regulatory frameworks are 'governmental disruption', and so on. The government owns the housing market, pretty much controls every piece of equipment that any hospital buys, and controls what newspaper can be printed. Imagine if the US nationalised the entire housing market, created an investment fund of the size of a third of the economy, and banned a dozen newspapers, I doubt we'd call it nimble administration.

There is no tradition of 'small government' in much of Asia. The centrality of public administration in the region, in China say, goes back thousands of years. Post-war Japan was basically the US if the New Deal had gone on for fourty more years, and South Korea developed for the most part under a military dictator.

In general 'big government' isn't a scary thing to most people outside of the US and England maybe. Not even in Europe does anyone actually complain about 'big government', so it's an entirely weird discussion.

The same things that make the Asian peoples compliant with societal restrictions and "big government" might also leave them vulnerable to being led astray by those same governments, or tolerant of dictatorial actions. (and not just singling out Asian cultures here -- any authority-respecting people)

The same traits that make Americans uncooperative with government mandates might be a great protection against unreasonable actions of a tyrant. Or it could be a very bad weakness in a complex, connected economy.

After reading Jared Diamond's idea about the nature of cultural traits in Guns Germs Steel (though he didn't phrase it that way exactly), I think of that often when these things come up. A country's culture, ethos, political system (quite independent from individual behavior, as individuals quickly get absorbed into national behavior) determines a lot of how they survive or resist, or adapt.

The question is whether they have the right combination of traits to get them through the slew of challenges in aggregate, over time, that life throws at them randomly, to succeed in the long run.

Will the idea of big spending government also delivers the same outcome? If yes, how do we manage those so that we will not arrive at the great depression of 1929?

A strong state apparatus without accountability or a principle of transcendent law -- that is a far "bigger" government than any in Asia currently. Really, people in Asia are still getting used to a smaller government.

[1] Facebook is full of nurses coming forward with this, and I know some people working at the hospital.

COVID-19 didn't cause such trouble, but I imagine a more deadly virus could, and it could be very hard to trace the source. At the same time, I doubt this would be possible to fully control for the government that spread it, so it seems improbable too.

you're entitled to your opinion too, eh?

When I think of "big government", I imagine a militarized police force, lack of access to medical care, pervasive surveillance, unchecked imperialism, billionaires writing their own rules and to tie a bow on the top: a propaganda wing to manufacture the consent of the governed.

If you think what I wrote about above can only happen in "authoritarian" or, gasp, "communist" countries, you are certainly mistaken.

This is a commonly misreported point—earlier this year I saw The Guardian claim that the reason Japan, SK and China are better at dealing with COVID is because “police visibly enforced lockdown”; two of the three never did! Sure, in Korea at times non-essential domestic travel and public events were suppressed, certain venues (e.g. dance halls) were instructed to close and some cafes had to become takeout-only, but you can still move (even if strongly recommended to stay at home) and police presence was never visibly heightened.

Contrast with mainland China, where whole apartment buildings with people in them were quite non-figuratively sealed from outside.

What I hear from Koreans is that the police is a service, like a plumber: you have a problem, you call. They can’t enter your home, can’t invade your privacy and spot-check, etc. Law enforcement is so restricted by citizens’ own choice, as they had to deal with the opposite extreme recently enough that people still remember; they hold the government responsible and treasure the freedom they have.

Where I live we get 10x the gov. budget deficit than the previous year and the government is reducing and eliminating taxes at the same time. So the "taxes" will come in the form of reduced value of money, or taxes in the future. Level of taxation is pretty much equivalent to the level of government spending. There's, no way around it.

On top of that, general population's savings are being depleted. So yeah, future is bleak. Anyway, I hope the gov spending will get to sane levels soon.

It doesn't help that this is the global phenomenon, so economy/currency is not crashing as much compared to the surrounding countries. But there are still wild swings of ~10% or so compared to USD or EUR.

It's a pretty hard case to make that a disease which disproportionately killed health 20-30 year-olds led to mass prosperity.

Given all the advancements which were happening in the early 20th century, I'm inclined to say that prosperity happened in SPITE of WWI and the Spanish Flu. Who knows where we would be, had we avoided two huge human catastrophes.

I don't know if that is the right lesson to learn. The great depression was largely caused by a stock market crash related to lack of regulation, and a drought (hello climate change). It was largely solved by big government wartime spending.

However in reality the deathtoll from COVID is scarcely distinguishable from regular influenza seasons. Only 0.06% of Sweden's population succumbed to COVID and their annual deaths are shaping up to be the same as prior years, for example. Similar situation in Germany.

China, Russia and every other country has been given a wonderful blueprint for absolutely disrupting the US and really entire western order. The fact nobody seems to be talking about the national security implications of this virus and what our rivals or enemies have learned is frightening.

Can you imagine how fucked things would get if another virus struck the US right after we deal with Covid?

And I mean good and bad governments, with good and bad ideas.

It's hard being in government, you never get to do the things you want, it's a long, compromising grind. There's no money for anything so either you raise taxes (scary), take on more debt (also scary) or print money (scary).

The conservative government in the UK and liberal government in Canada have made major green announcements, a lot of this is opportunistic politiking.

The 'Modern Monetary Theorists' ('debts don't matter' people) are definitely pushing hard at this time.

Because every central bank and government is going into full on Keynsian spending, they're likely going to want to keep on doing that, and not reverting to the 'regular economy'. Power is hard to reliquish.

In Canada, pre-covid, we saw the average house price increase in value more than the average wage in the country. That is point blank crazy. That is a weird financialisation of the economy that we don't yet understand - inflation in a fixed asset that doesn't increase productivity.

Even the US Fed said just a few days ago 'It's a New World Orders'.

People should be spooked because with all the flux and the rules being re-written there will be power grabs, and just because people think they are benevolent, doesn't mean they are. Surely, a common denominator in humanity is the propensity for people to make power grabs when they can.

Conspiracy theorists misconstrue independent opportunist agents as centrally planned competence.

They heavily overweigh competence.

~ Winston Churchill

The militarized police force was bested by a couple hundred anarchists and no charges even filed.

The lack of access to medical care just spent $6 billion buy vaccines for everyone in the country.

The unchecked imperialism just drew down all their troops and is achieving real progress towards normalized peaceful relations.

A few of the others are quite on point though.