Shomron Center for Economic Policy Research

Dr. Marilyn M. Singleton (US Doctor and Lawyer) interview with my colleague and co-author Dr. Yehoshua Socol: “… As my guest put it, the mindset behind the Covid-19 response will lead to “government expansion, ultimately ending in the establishment of full control and ‘one payer’ financing of medical services, is turning doctors to be de facto parts of a bureaucratic machinery.”

Who is the principal beneficiary of the welfare state? This issue was discussed during the dispute hosted by “Students for Liberty” an international non-profit organization on January 11 at Ben Gurion University (in Hebrew).

Here is the introductory speech by Ilia Zatcovetsky who asserted, that the real (principal) beneficiaries of the Welfare state are social bureaucrats and allied politicians.

For a detailed explanation of this assertion (in Hebrew) see our book Socializm Haziri (Pig Socialism) just published by Kineret Zmora-Bitan Dvir Publishers.

“Socializm Haziri” – Pig Socialism – the book written by Ilia Zatcovetsky and Moshe yanovskiy just starts to make its way to the reader. Kineret Zmora-Bitan Dvir Publishers have published the book.

This book represents our endeavor to challenge the ‘Living Dead’ of Socialism from a fresh and significant standpoint. Many talented authors have sought to demonstrate the merits of a free-market economy using ‘universal’ models, cases, and arguments not tied to specific historical periods or countries. However, we firmly believe that historical context and political and legal institutions are of great importance and cannot be overlooked.
As early as 1994, Milton Friedman identified the ‘illogical’ resurgence of Dead Socialism: “What happened in Europe with the collapse of the Berlin Wall? By now, everyone agrees with two propositions: Proposition one – ‘Socialism is a failure.’ Proposition two – ‘Capitalism is a success.’ To judge from what goes on in Washington, the conclusion that has been drawn is: “Therefore, the U.S. needs more socialism.”
Our book sheds light on the well-known incentives of left-leaning politicians (advocates of ‘Big Government’ providing comprehensive care from cradle to grave) and welfare state’s bureaucrats within the realms of Economics and History. Why do they persistently advocate for higher taxation, stringent regulations (often presented as ‘anti-discriminatory’ or ‘ecological’), and more?
Ultimately, our book illustrates how the Welfare state tends to evolve into full-fledged socialism and elucidates why even ‘light socialism’ is exceedingly perilous from a long-term perspective. The book is grounded in data and numerous case studies drawn from Israel and the historical and contemporary experiences of old democracies.

Full references with clickable links and some supplemental materials the reader can be found in the

סוציאליזם חזירי. נספחים Pig Socialism. Supplemental Materials

Our article claiming that lockdown policies have never been scientifically justified has been published in the Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (Yanovskiy M, Socol Y. Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(15):9295. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159295).

The present coronavirus crisis caused a major worldwide disruption that has not been experienced for decades. The lockdown-based crisis management was implemented by nearly all countries, and studies confirming lockdown effectiveness can be found alongside the studies questioning it. In this work, we performed a narrative review of the works studying the above effectiveness, as well as the historical experience of previous pandemics and risk-benefit analysis based on the connection of health and wealth. Our aim was to learn lessons and analyze ways to improve the management of similar events in the future. The comparative analysis of different countries showed that the assumption of lockdowns’ effectiveness cannot be supported by evidence—neither regarding the present COVID-19 pandemic nor regarding the 1918–1920 Spanish Flu and other less-severe pandemics in the past. The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save. It is suggested therefore that a thorough cost-benefit analysis should be performed before imposing any lockdown for either COVID-19 or any future pandemic.

The paper just published in INQUIRY: Cost-Effectiveness Threshold for Healthcare: Justification and Quantification. The material is basically a little bit boring. Do not miss the Appendix (counting lost Life Years as a result of lockdowns imposed on us by the Government here in Israel). While the link provided in the text doesn’t work properly use the following link to the Appendix.

The paper challenges governmental intervention in cases of “medical events” (disasters, pandemics, and the like). These interventions have a price measured in human life lost (and this point is not new at all). So, governmental emergency intervention is targeted to protect human lives and break normal routine lives, harming incomes and thus shortening human lives. So the emergency intervention ought to be justified by proven harm prevented. We had developed not so complicated procedure of counting minimal thresholds justifying the possibility of intervention. We counted the human life price (about 500 thousand normal quality life years) of lockdowns imposed on Israeli people in 2020.