Social Science Theories and COVID Totalitarianism

The debate between those who believe we are in the midst of a “plandemic” and those who think we are merely ruled by venal bunglers is no mere sparring match involving conspiracy theorists and those who explain failed COVID policy as the result of stupidity rather evil.  There are higher scholarly enterprises involved here.

Political theory and the social sciences more broadly offer a rich seam of explanations for the COVID policy disasters of the past two-and-a-bit years.  They comfortably explain both the decision-making and the supine acquiescence of peoples across the globe.  In fact, there is a mere sliver of difference between plausible theories of the COVID State that emanate from Nobel Prize winning economists and their scholarly peers and what the Canadian COVID realist James Corbett tellingly terms “conspiracy research”.

One example.  The whole of public choice theory – which posits that politicians and public officials (and we could throw in the legacy…