Authored by Mark Gianniny via RealClearMarkets,
The next time a candidate promises that greater government control will make life safer, fairer and more secure, Americans should remember 2020. They should remember the closed schools, shuttered businesses, restricted churches, isolated families, arbitrary mandates and government checks intended to compensate people for livelihoods government had interrupted.
COVID was not socialism in the strict textbook sense. Government did not nationalize most businesses or formally abolish private property. But the pandemic gave Americans a revealing glimpse of the governing instinct behind socialism: Central authorities replaced millions of individual decisions with government orders, restricted private activity in the name of the collective good and made citizens dependent on public assistance to endure the restrictions government itself imposed.
During the frightening opening weeks, temporary precautions were understandable. We faced an unfamiliar virus, hospitals feared being overwhelmed and officials had limited information. Most Americans accepted extraordinary restrictions because they were told the measures were necessary and temporary.
The problem was how quickly temporary precautions became a system of control and how slowly government surrendered that control.
Officials decided who could work and which businesses were "essential." They determined whether children could enter their classrooms, congregations could enter their churches and families c
