Pfizer recently announced it had successfully tested a COVID-19 vaccine. That is good news, and it did not happen because of socialism. The breakthrough was made possible by Operation Warp Speed, the program to use free market forces to solve the nation’s worst public health crisis. The key element of the program is cutting regulations and liberating private-sector innovation.
The government has not only promised to buy any successful vaccine, it has cut the normal six-year approval process to a period of months and slashed hundreds of other government restrictions. The deregulatory policy has led to a massive surge in research, testing and development in COVID treatments and potential vaccines by pharmaceutical companies. It has also led to billions of dollars of private investment in fighting the coronavirus.
In addition to Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZenica, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and other private companies have accelerated research programs into COVID therapies and vaccines. It was inevitable that these innovative market players would find a solution.
The government has used the astonishing creative power of the free market to tackle a national crisis before.
Famously, private manufacturers built the advanced long-range aircraft needed to win World War II. That happened because, like today’s Operation Warp Speed, the government eased regulations in ways that allowed companies to ramp up to unprecedented levels of production. In three years the companies produced tens of thousands of reliable, high-performance aircraft. At the height of production, private companies produced 96,000 airplanes in one year.
The same policy was applied to thousands of other essential items, from ships to army boots. The government coordinated production, then tapped private companies to make what was needed. In other words, removing barriers to free market production was key to defeating fascism and national socialism in Europe.
The same free-market approach is being used to tackle today’s deadly public health threat.
Yes, government action is needed in a public health crisis. The government has emergency powers that don’t exist in the private sector, like unlimited debt financing, use of the military and the rapid allocation of resources to anywhere in the country. But these essential steps are recognized as stop-gap measures until a permanent cure or vaccine is found.
And that permanent solution is made possible by innovation, investment and production in a robust free market economy.
The present health crisis won’t last forever. When a vaccine makes normal social and economic life possible again, we should remember that, in the end, it was private initiative thriving in a free market that ended solved the COVID pandemic.
