Page 170 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

that some of the most basic assumptions we make in economics
have a moral element embedded in them. Should, for example,

fairness or justice be considered when looking at the laws of
supply and demand? And what does the response tell us about
ourselves? This quintessential moral issue came to the fore during
the most acute phase of the pandemic in early 2020 when

shortages of some basic necessities (like oil and toilet paper) and
critical supplies for dealing with COVID-19 (like masks and
ventilators) started to occur. What was the right response? Let the
laws of supply and demand work their magic so that prices rise

high enough and clear the market? Or, rather, regulate demand or
even prices for a little while? In a famous paper written in 1986,
Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler (who were subsequently
awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics) explored this issue and

concluded that rising prices in an emergency is simply
unacceptable from a societal standpoint because it will be
perceived as unfair. Some economists may argue that higher
prices triggered by supply and demand are effective in so far as

they discourage panic buying, but most people would consider
this is an issue that has little to do with economics and more to do
with a sentiment of fairness, hence of moral judgement. Most
companies understand this: raising the price of a good that is

needed in an extreme situation like a pandemic, particularly if it is
a mask or hand sanitizer, is not only offensive but flies in the face
of what is considered morally and socially acceptable. For this
reason, Amazon prohibited price gouging on its site, and large

retail chains responded to the shortages not by raising the price of
the goods but by limiting the quantity that each customer could
buy.

It is hard to tell whether these moral considerations constitute
a reset, and whether they will have a long-lasting, post-

coronavirus effect on our attitudes and behaviours. At the very
least, we could assume that we are now more individually aware
of the fact that our decisions are infused with values and informed

by moral choices. It might follow that, if (but it is a big “if”) in the
future we abandon the posture of self-interest that pollutes so
many of our social interactions, we may be able to pay more

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