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The inclusive vs extractive institutions mentality makes sense but I think in the exact reverse way then you suggest.

It's precisely because of the Wests (and like Marc says it really is the West) failure to respond to this crisis. It's the excess of inclusivity that leads to short term, ballot box decision making in response to crises, and it is the short term, market logic that leads to loss of autonomy and neglect of long term goals that Marc talks about in the piece.

It's the politication of a healhcare / virological crisis that renders responses ineffective. When the American president gins up armed protesters during a pandemic that is the direct result of the inclusivity praised in the book. It's crisis response turned into a media spectacle and an election campaign.

Efffective resopnse to the crisis was visible in East Asian countries in which 'elites' can govern without constant interference, and that's not a glorification of China, but also of democratic countries like Taiwan, or so-so democratic countries like Singapore. What they all have in common is that decisions are made by leadership which can act with the necessary degree of autonomy.



> What they all have in common is that decisions are made by leadership which can act with the necessary degree of autonomy.

No, what they have in common is that they've been through this experience before with SARS, learned from it and setup procedures so they could act faster next time.


All the recent outbreaks of viruses like this have originated from East Asia.

I really wouldnt give much praise to the great governing elite that failed to prevent this in the first place, despite scientists telling them about it a long time ago.


Not only is that factually incorrect as the other user pointed out, but you may be surprised that more than half of the worlds population lives in this circle (https://i.imgur.com/CK6aONG.jpg), so the fact that a lot of diseases originate there isn't as surprising as you might think.

Not to mention that diseases can break out everywhere, making the response to a pandemic significantly more important than trying to shift blame for what is essentially a game of chance.


It's still pretty surprising, and probably has more to do with cultural practices of eating all kinds of wild animals, than with population density.

How many diseases originated in India?


>factually incorrect

It's not. SARS is from China.

>not to mention that diseases can break out everywhere

>essentially a game of chance

It's 100% preventable. Just cut contact with wildlife that spreads these viruses.

I'm only correcting the fallacy of praising any goverment that fails to address the root causes of these problems.


>All the recent outbreaks of viruses like this have originated from East Asia.

That's not true. Swine flu came from Mexico and MERS, as the name implies, started in the Middle East


I do mean SARS which first surfaced in the 2000s in China.

Swine flu has been around for much longer, at least for 100 years.


Having one example and phrasing it to sound like multiple is misleading, imo.


Sorry about that. It wasn't the point, as SARS is caused by many different strains of the same type of virus.

The first outbreak of SARS-CoV was identified in Foshan, Guangdong, China, in November 2002.

Thats almost 20 years ago.

Also Swine Infulenza does not originate from Mexico.


The flu colloquially known as swine flu from 2009 did start in Mexico.




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