Read on Twitter
I don't want to succumb to the temptation of hyperbole, but watching the Trump administration's response to the COVID pandemic I can't help but think about the Three Years of Famine in China from 1959-1961. I'm far from expert. My understand is based largely on one college class.
That said, my sense of what happened is that Chairman Mao became enamored of some crackpot agricultural ideas from Trofim Lysenko (yes, that Lysenko) and Terentiy Maltsev.
These involved high-density planting and deep ploughing, both of which led to crop failures.
These involved high-density planting and deep ploughing, both of which led to crop failures.
At the same time, the central government mounted an aggressive Smash Sparrows Campaign. Millions of birds were killed as supposed agricultural pests, leading to an explosion of the far more harmful insect pests that they would have fed upon.
Because of pressure from central leadership on local authorities, crop yields were badly exaggerated. This hid the scale and trajectory of the growing crisis, and before China could correct course, they suffered a dreadful family that killed tens of millions.
The parallels are obvious. A powerful central leadership espousing crackpot theories while ignoring scientific consensus, and crushing or marginalizing voices—such as those of career CDC employees—that would attempt to correct their mistakes.
And a focus on numbers instead of outcomes, creating perverse incentives (eschew the benefits of testing in order to prevent increasing case counts) while covering up the scope of the problem until it becomes too late.
Trump won't kill 30 million with COVID, of course. But the common point is that all of this was easily avoidable. Yet it happened anyway, because of disastrous power structures that allowed a country to be led astray by the terrible scientific judgment of an inexpert leader.
As I mentioned, I am far from expert on the Great Leap Forward and the Three Years of Famine.
I welcome corrections or comments from those who are.
(Less interested in hearing that Trump is doing a great job and that experts have been wrong since the start.)
I welcome corrections or comments from those who are.
(Less interested in hearing that Trump is doing a great job and that experts have been wrong since the start.)
