COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria, 2021, Bagus et al.

[Lou B Lou]

Don't fully know what to make of this. I think it's a sensationalist mess of an article. What leaped out at me was the first line 'Public healthcare systems form a vital part of the welfare state.'



'COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria'

Abstract
'In this article, we aim to develop a political economy of mass hysteria. Using the background of COVID-19, we study past mass hysteria. Negative information which is spread through mass media repetitively can affect public health negatively in the form of nocebo effects and mass hysteria. We argue that mass and digital media in connection with the state may have had adverse consequences during the COVID-19 crisis. The resulting collective hysteria may have contributed to policy errors by governments not in line with health recommendations. While mass hysteria can occur in societies with a minimal state, we show that there exist certain self-corrective mechanisms and limits to the harm inflicted, such as sacrosanct private property rights. However, mass hysteria can be exacerbated and self-reinforcing when the negative information comes from an authoritative source, when the media are politicized, and social networks make the negative information omnipresent. We conclude that the negative long-term effects of mass hysteria are exacerbated by the size of the state.

Keywords: mass hysteria, nocebo effects, contagion, mass media, social media, public health, law and economics, political economy, groupthink, culture of fear, emotional contagion, anxiety, policy error, COVID-19

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7913136/

 

[Shadrach Loom]

This is a very weird paper. It’s not quite Covid denialism but it’s close, and its underpinnings are Nozick-style libertarianism as much as the BPS chestnuts it adduces. I doubt that many of those who make an intellectual living out of psychologising chronic illness would want to touch the authors with a barge pole.

 

[Trish]

The main argument seems to be that governments made policy mistakes when they imposed restrictions such as lockdowns and mandated mask wearing because this caused stress and mass hysteria. They also try to argue that the risks of death from Covid-19 were exaggerated.

 

[rvallee]

It's genuinely a challenge these days to write anything so devoid of intelligence and reasoning that it's not even believable that it was written by an AI because they simply aren't ever that bad at it, it takes serious talent to come up with such poverty of thought.

These dudes met the challenge and then some. Kudos. In Hollywood they have the Razzies, the opposite of the Oscars. Now, our BPS overlords are masters of the medical Razzies, but these dudes managed the same void of wit in, I guess it's supposed to be about economics, or something.

Given the keywords, it seems like it was written by a very lonely and bored SEO Markov chain. Or maybe a dog chewing on certain bones vs others. Who knows, really? Truly a mystery for the ages.

 

[Trish]

I have just amended the thread title as I looked at the paper and found it was published early in 2021, not 2023. My fault for getting it wrong when I moved it.

 

[RedFox]

This paper appears to be more about politics than health.

 

[SNT Gatchaman]

I guess I would fall into "the group of hysterics" according to these authors. To paraphrase Captain Blackadder: "You see, there was a tiny flaw in the thesis... it was bollocks."

In a mass hysteria, people of a group start to believe that they might be exposed to something dangerous, such as a virus or a poison. They believe a threat to be real because someone says so, or because it fits their experience.

Perhaps they missed the bit about the global pandemic airborne novel virus that has, in undisputed fact, "exposed people to something dangerous", and that has caused at least 6.7 million confirmed deaths.

It is one of the core characteristics of decentralized systems that they allow for competition, error detection, and correction. If the people that ultimately become role models for others through their interaction become ill and die, the panic would be confirmed. However, if there is really a hysteria and the threat is imagined or exaggerated, the fortune of the role models will be on average much better than is expected by those that succumbed to the hysteria. A sufficient number and variety of role models allows observers to correct and adjust their expectations.

A large number of role models have indeed died*, but the invisible brain of the market seems to be able to ignore that.

* And many more who haven't been attributed to COVID.

 

[Shadrach Loom]

I have just amended the thread title as I looked at the paper and found it was published early in 2021, not 2023. My fault for getting it wrong when I moved it.

Even in the dim and distant days of 2021, there was quite a lot of cemetery-based evidence that covid wasn’t a hysterical authoritarian invention, so that doesn’t excuse the authors.

I’m surprised that people can hold salaried positions at presumably respectable universities and publish arrant nonsense in open access, semi-predatory MDPI journals, without being held to account by anyone. Just another of the oddities about academia.

 

[CRG]

Lead author has a long association with: Mises Institute

"Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a right-wing libertarian nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, United States.[2][3] It is named after the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973).

It was founded in 1982 by Lew Rockwell. Its creation was funded by Ron Paul.[3]"

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Propagandist nonsense dressed up as serious economics.

 

[rvallee]

Lead author has a long association with: Mises Institute

"Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a right-wing libertarian nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, United States.[2][3] It is named after the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973).

It was founded in 1982 by Lew Rockwell. Its creation was funded by Ron Paul.[3]"

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Propagandist nonsense dressed up as serious economics.

Ah, that explains a lot. These people think child labor is great, among other things. Ayn Rand stuff, very bleak view of the world.

 

[SNT Gatchaman]

The main argument seems to be that governments made policy mistakes when they imposed restrictions such as lockdowns and mandated mask wearing because this caused stress and mass hysteria

I presume the World Health Organisation are now also part of this "group of hysterics" - despite being famously slow (generously) or wrong (accurately) in much of their pandemic messaging to date.

This week announcing —

this update recommends their use irrespective of the local epidemiological situation, given the current spread of the COVID-19 globally. Masks are recommended following a recent exposure to COVID-19, when someone has or suspects they have COVID-19, when someone is at high-risk of severe COVID-19, and for anyone in a crowded, enclosed, or poorly ventilated space.

 

[CRG]

I presume the World Health Organisation are now also part of this "group of hysterics" - despite being famously slow (generously) or wrong (accurately) in much of their pandemic messaging to date.

This week announcing —

Given the funder of the Mises Institute, and the Institute's link to the authors, I think we may take it that in respect of the WHO we would be in New World Order conspiracy territory.