Beth Baumann of Town Hall reported that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Saturday, March 14, 2020 that he believes the Wuhan virus provides the best scenario for the federal government to nationalize “crucial factories and industries.”
According to the New York City mayor, people can receive tests for the virus, but they’re carried out on a “priority structure” due to the limited quantity of tests that are available.
“Here’s the reality. This is a war-like situation. We’re in a wartime scenario with a Mar-a-Lago attitude being used by the federal government. It’s so laid back, and I don’t understand it,” he told MSNBC’s Joy Reid. “By the way, testing. How about ventilators? Where is the federal government making sure our hospitals have the ventilators we’re going to need? Where is the federal government when it comes to surgical masks, getting them distributed? This is a case for a nationalization of crucial factories and industries – literally a nationalization – that could produce the medical supplies to prepare this country for what we need.”
The state of New York was able to find a way to produce hand sanitizer but de Blasio said this strategy has not been enough in terms of handling the crisis.
“The point I’m saying is the federal government should recognize this is a crucial part of stopping this. There should be a national approach to ensuring every factory that can make hand sanitizer should be on 24/7 shifts and the distribution should go to the places that need it most,” the mayor commented. “We’re not into the discussion because we can’t even get the testing.”
Nationalizing “crucial factories and industries” is basically a form of radical socialism where the government has no qualms about seizing property and putting it in the name of the state. Economic productivity or disrespect for property be damned.
Such crisis like the Wuhan virus can necessitate localized forms of government responses, but De Blasio goes too far in his call for complete nationalization of certain means of production.
This type of central planning should have died with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
