"...but the economy..."
A bit of a thought experiment. I should note that what follows is not a belief structure that I adhere to or one that anyone should adhere to for that matter. It is simply allowing my mind to wander down a road that it wouldn't normally travel.
The thesis statement that I would develop looks something like this:
The cultural and economic benefits of allowing COVID-19 in the long term would far outweigh the short term disruption it would cause.
A wretched and horrible thought for those of us who hold to values of God, family and honour but let's set those aside for a moment and frame our morality from a utilitarian ethic and our deity on the invisible hand of the market. We'll assume that capitalism is the producer of the greatest common good and should thus be held as the most essential of values for the flourishing of human life.
Let us also understand the effect of COVID-19 on the human population. Data is still relatively young and not complete but what we see as a certain trend is that the effects of the virus are disproportionate.
The challenge of the Thanos solution is that the results are unpredictable. 50% of the universe's population removed at random. One would assume an even distribution among all available populations with some outlying statistical variance but for the most part the fundamental makeup of the remaining population would be the same across demographics. There would be roughly the same ratio of men and women, similar effects on diversity, economic status and the like.
The resulting economic effect of simply snapping one's fingers and removing half the population would be a question of scaling resource consumption while still maintaining status quo on the social order. The economy would be cut neatly in half but the fundamental needs of that economy would still be the same.
Think of it this way: the percentage population that eats kale would remain the same thus there would continue to be a market for kale at the same share of the market. Thus the market, though reduced by half, would continue to produce kale along supply and demand curves.
Prices would look the same and the patterns of work, distribution, and societal value would still exist around it.
COVID-19, however, is not an evenly distributed exercise in population disruption. It is targeted along some very specific demographic measures thus creating a potentially disruptive force for change within the world.
The most significant of these is the disruption caused by a significant population reduction among seniors. COVID-19 is a significant threat for those in retirement age against the rest of the population. As of writing the mortality rate for those over the age of 65 averages to somewhere between 8 and 12 percent.
For those below that age the average drops significantly from one in ten to something more like one in a thousand. (Source)
If this virus were to spread through the whole of the population then we would see a fundamental redistribution of ages and a lowering of the average age of the population.
With that would come sweeping changes to economic and social dynamics that we can explore.
Such a reduction in population would be one of the largest generational transfers of wealth and capital. There is a profound economic reality that a large reservoir of capital resides in the retirement funds of seniors, trapped value in owned property, and other economic reserves. (Source)
To put it simply: those over the age of 65 hold the greatest percentage of wealth. There is no doubt that that wealth has been earned over a lifetime of work and investment but with that comes a particular societal deficit: that wealth is directed in a fundamentally disproportionate way impacting the due course of society.
To put it even more simply: old people have more money than young people and spend it on old people things. If the population was more evenly distributed the effect of this would still exist but it would be lessened. As it stands, however, with the Baby Boom skewing the distribution it means that what we are experiencing is an economy that is overproducing old people things over the economic short term.
Society is bent towards health care for the most expensive generation to treat. Entertainment for those who are wired toward nostalgia. Infrastructure for those who are the hardest to move and in locations that become locked out for those who are young.
This crowds out innovation. Directs our younger population towards some of the most stressful social service work contributing to a catering economy and a class war that is both rich and poor and old and young at the same time.
Funding for the arts and new ideas are removed for those who provide little to the economy, invest with the least interest in world changing risk, and who politically continue to influence a system to their collective advantage at the detriment of the next generation coming.
Imagine the finger snapping, however, and the generational imbalance was shifted.
Health care spending that is directed towards extending the care of those bearing the most complicated, labour and resource intensive conditions would be reallocated to education, infrastructure, and the arts.
Housing markets that are locking out young families would be opened and greater neighbourhood diversity would be created.
Racist structures of a generation bent on protecting its own would be deconstructed in favour of a more profound and inclusive structure.
The economy would shift to a more natural balance that would still include care for seniors but would return to a state of growth and focus on all generations.
The labour market would shift away from the culturally suffocating obsession with keeping old people happy and then less cranky and then simply not dying even though there isn't much point to living past a certain point.
Would there be a short term economic impact? Of course. Not on the spending side - as that existing wealth would simply transfer to younger generations who would spend it on more interesting things and to governments who would build schools, roads, and playgrounds. The reality of COVID-19, however, is that retraining for a vast swath of the population is already at hand and that the disruptions align with those that are already going to occur.
There is, of course, a nostalgic counter argument that it could be your grandmother who would succumb to illness. While sad it is still a statistical improbability with a 90% chance that she would be fine. It is also a sadness with a silver lining that you would be remembered in her will.
