The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global health, social and economic crisis. Historical comparisons are few, particularly in recent decades. This tragedy constitutes nothing less than a trial for all humanity. The two meanings of the French word "épreuve" captures the dual significance of what we now confront: épreuve in the sense of an ordeal, an immense and painful undertaking, but also a test, an evaluation, or a judgment. The pandemic, in other words, is now testing the capacity of our political and economic systems to cope with a global problem situated at the level of our individual interdependence, which is to say at the very foundation of our social life. Like a dystopia made real, the current situation provides us with a glimpse of what soon awaits humanity if global economic and political structures are unable to radically and rapidly transform in order to confront the climate change crisis.
French sociologist
Christian Laval (born 1953) is a French researcher on the history of philosophy and sociology at the .
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What has since become abundantly apparent is the destructive influence of behavioral economics and the so-called "nudge theory" of political decision-making, which relies on and stimuli to steer individual behavior, rather than coercion or restraint. We now know that the "nudge unit," or the "," that advises the successfully convinced the state of their theory that individuals who are too quickly constrained by severe measures will tire and relax their discipline when the epidemic reaches its peak, which is precisely when discipline is needed most. Since 2010, 's economic theory — which he outlines in the book Nudge (2009) — is widely thought to be the best means for producing "efficient state governance." This approach tells us to encourage people, without coercing them, to make the best decisions through the use of "nudges": by using gentle, indirect, comfortable and optional influences upon individuals who are still ultimately free to make their own choices. The application of this "" in the fight against the epidemic has been two-fold: (a) the rejection of any coercive measures to regulate individual behavior and (b) a preference for "barrier gestures": keep your distance, wash your hands, cough into your elbow, self-isolate if you have a fever and all for your own benefit. This wager to rely on soft, voluntary measures was risky: there is no scientific or empirical evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach in the context of an epidemic. And it is now all too clear that this approach entirely failed.