Coronavirus Will Revive an All-Powerful State
Much maligned in recent years, big government will come back—and with it, the potential for both greater good and evil.
‘NRA’ used to stand for the National Recovery Administration.
Photographer: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
(The second article in a two-part series)
Threatening the world with a long recession, the coronavirus looks set to inaugurate a turbulent new political and economic era. Its main tendencies will become visible over the months and years to come. But the most revolutionary shift is already in sight.
The state, much maligned in recent decades, is back, and in its fundamental role: as Leviathan, the preventer of anarchy, and the ultimate insurance against an intolerable human condition in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”