Controversy on COVID-19 Models of Communication and Management: Visible Fist (Bureaucratic Coaction) versus Invisible Hand (Social Coordination)

This article offers an economic analysis, along with empirical illustrations, of the controversy over COVID-19 models of communication and management. It compares mainstream and heterodox models—that is, the interventionist model based on bureaucratic coaction and the liberal model based on agile market alternatives or spontaneous and flexible social coordination. It is also a study of political economy, communications, and the management of public health and security issues from the perspective of Austrian economics. The analysis is based on Mises’s theorem about the impossibility of economic calculation under centralized, coactive systems (the interventionist model) as well as other economic principles, such as that of opportunity cost. In this context, the article also pays attention to the collateral problems and secondary effects of the interventionist model application. The conclusion proposes a solution to the problem of economic well-being that involves dynamic efficiency and technological change.