Doom : The Politics of Catastrophe

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Disasters are inherently unpredictable, and pandemics, like other crises, do not follow historical patterns that could help us anticipate them. When disasters occur, we should be better prepared than past societies, thanks to advancements in science. However, the responses of many developed nations to a new pathogen from China were severely mishandled. While poor leadership is an easy scapegoat, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed deeper issues within the administrative state and economic elites, who had become shortsighted over many years. Questions arise about why warnings were ignored and why only a few nations learned from previous outbreaks like SARS and MERS. The appeal to "the science" often devolved into mere wishful thinking. Drawing on history, economics, public health, and network science, this analysis serves as a global examination of the pandemic's impact. The author, Niall Ferguson, explores the pathologies that have caused significant harm, including imperial hubris and bureaucratic inefficiency. COVID-19 exposed failures that must prompt countries to learn from history to avoid the risk of irreversible decline.