On March 26, 2020, “the US
overtook Italy and China as the country with the highest number of confirmed
Covid-19 cases.”[1] At first glance, this statement can gain sufficient
traction to become definitive. The implication that the U.S. is mismanaging the
pandemic can even be regarded as valid even though the comparison itself is
invalid.
Firstly, the United States,
Italy, and China have very different population-levels. At the time, China’s
population stood at roughly 1.435 billion, the U.S. population was
331 million, and Italy’s was 60 million. The U.S. had at least
81,321 cases.[2] China had at least 82,000 cases.[3] Italy had at
least 80,539.[4] Per capita, the U.S. had at least one case for every
4,070 people; China had at least one per 17,500 people; and Italy had at least
one case per 745 people. Adjusted for population-level, Italy was worse than
the United States, which in turn was worse than China. Of course, China was
coming down from its apex of cases, while the United States had not yet hit its
apex and Italy may not have hit its own yet. Singapore’s confirmed 631 cases
may seem a trifle until the city-state’s population of 5,838,360 is taken into
account. With at least one case per 9,253 people, Singapore stood
between the United States and China in severity of cases. So, at the
very least, taking the population level into account is vital in comparing
countries on the coronavirus pandemic.
Secondly, comparing countries
assumes that they are all equivalent, as countries, not only for comparative
purposes, but also as political entities. This is a modern assumption—that a
city-state is equivalent to an empire, to take two points at the extremes; the
kingdom being between the two. In other words, it is assumed that just because
every country is sovereign, every country is equivalent even in non-political
matters of comparison.
Historically, the attribute of
sovereignty was not so decisive in declaring equivalencies. No one would claim
that a stand-alone kingdom was the equivalent of an empire. For example,
Althusius’ theory of federalism, described in his Political Digest (1604),
clearly distinguishes a city, province, kingdom, and empire from each
other. Based in part on the Holy Roman Empire, Athusius’ version of
federalism contains a hierarchy, including guilds, villages, cities (composed
of villages), provinces/regions, and the empire. Representatives of the guilds
sit on village councils, village representatives sit on city councils, and so
on until representatives of the provinces sit at the federal head—the empire’s
governance.[5] It would be absurd to claim that a kingdom in one empire is
equivalent to either a city or another empire. With these terms of political
organization going by the wayside, the vague, over-generalizing term, country,
filled the void, with its fallacious assumption that the attribute of
sovereignty means that countries are equivalent in matters of making even
non-political comparisons. This working assumption, as part of the status quo
by the twenty-first century, is so ridiculous that the underlying presence of a
warping large mass can be indirectly detected.[6] The ideology of
nationalism, for instance, would have sufficient force to warp reasoning, as
well as perception.
To get a glimpse of the flawed
assumption, we can superimpose the historical terms on early-modern/modern
countries (e.g., the UK, rather than the medieval England). At least as of
2020, the United States and China, as well as the European Union, were
empire-level polities, whereas the E.U. state of Italy was an (early-modern)
kingdom-level polity, and Singapore was a city-state. The flaw in only using
the number of cases of coronavirus rests on the deeper flawed assumption that
all countries can be classified on the same level, notwithstanding huge
differences in scale and political type. In the E.U. and U.S., representatives
of the states (early-modern kingdom level) sit in bodies at the empire level
(i.e., the European Council and the U.S. Senate). To treat a state in one
empire as equivalent to another empire thus represents a category mistake
(i.e., conflating two different categories as one).
By implication, to treat the
regions or provinces of a U.S. or E.U. state as equivalent to the U.S. or E.U.
state level (provincia level in the ancient Roman Empire) also
involves a category mistake. The American colonies, which became sovereign
states (in a league or confederration), were mapped out to be on the scale of
the early-modern kingdoms in Europe.[7] Hence the geographical scales of the
U.S. and E.U. states cluster. California is roughly the size of Spain, Arizona
of Italy, Texas of France, and Montana of Germany. The small states also
cluster, but the differences between the large and small states is dwarfed by
the difference between the state cluster and the unions' cluster. In other
words, the difference between the sizes of the states and the unions is
sufficiently larger than how much the states differ and the unions differ that
a "step" (i.e., difference in kind, rather than just in amount) can
be seen. That the unions are made up of the states is another way of pointing
to two plateaus rather than a continuous slope (i.e., saying that the U.S. is
larger than France, which is the size of Texas). This is why conflating
the two clusters (i.e., of the states and of the unions) represents a category
mistake.
Therefore, comparing Italy’s
80,539 cases to the United States’ 81,321 can be understood as misleading,
therefore, because not only are the population-levels so different, but also
Italy is a state in a union that in turn is equivalent to the U.S. Logically,
if the two unions are equivalent, then a state in one cannot be equivalent to
the other union.
In comparisons in which either the
E.U. or the U.S. as one or both sides, the overgeneralization is itself
problematic because it hides the significant differences between the
states. In other words, that the American States differed significantly in
coronavirus cases in March, 2020 was lost in comparing the entire U.S. to
Italy. With a population of 5.85 million, Wisconsin had at least 707 cases on
March 26, 2020, and therefore one case per 8,274 people, while Washington (the
state) had at least 3,207 cases in a population of 7.8 million, and therefore
one case per 2,432 cases. The represents a substantial difference that is
hidden in aggregating all of the states' data. The statement that the
entire United States just got worse in coronavirus cases than a state in the
E.U. is thus problematic.
Even in correcting for the
category mistake (e.g., comparing an empire-scale geographic polity with an
early modern/modern "kingdom"-level polity, we would over generalize
to say that the E.U. is worse off than the U.S. precisely because such a comparison
ignores significant differences between the states in both unions. In
fact, even if it made sense to generalize the entire U.S. (i.e., states
differing little) rather than report predominately on the States, then the E.U.
too should have been at the other end of the comparison, even if its states
differed appreciably. As both unions were empire-scale, their respective states
were very likely to different on a variety of indexes.
Having corrected for the
category mistake and taken account of the fact that state-level differences
were significant in both unions, greater insight could have been gleamed on how
the virus was faring in Europe and America by comparing the "hot
spots," for example. That is to say more accurate comparisons would
be made between Italy, New York, France, Germany, California and Washington
because they were all being battered by the illness by the end of March (which
was going out like a lion).
On March 26, 2020, New
York (the State) had over 37,000 cases in population of 20 million: one case
for every 542 people, worse than Italy's 745 people. Washington (the State)
stood at 2,432 people, less severe than the E.U. state of Italy. From this
standpoint, the derivative (i.e., the change in the rate of increased cases)
for each state could be used to compare the "hot spots" with regard
to where they are relative to their respective apexes (i.e., the highest, hence
peaking, infection rates). Comparing the "hot spots" could thus
have been quite useful.
Because the state level in
both the U.S. and E.U. bore out tremendous differences in severity, it is just
common sense that states rather than the unions, or even worse, a union and a
state in another like union, should be compared. Moreover, that vast
differences in population and in political category, or even just geographical
scale (Italy being roughly the size of Arizona), have been routinely missed is
a serious flaw both in reasoning and knowledge of political organization. I
submit that the flaws in the default-axis of comparison have been protected by
a worldwide blind-spot, which has enabled a myriad of false-comparisons.
Nietzsche would doubtlessly
write that a brain-sickness predicated on a weakness was behind the warping of
reason and perception. A herd-animal mentality, including in the animals who
cannot resist the urge to dominate, could explain how the warping became
ingrained in the societal (and global) status quo. I contend that
nationalism and turning the attribute of governmental sovereignty into a
tautology rendered the flaws both invisible and part of the taken-for-granted
status-quo.
Well into the twenty-first
century, people (and governments) around the world were still intent on
assuming that the attribute of sovereignty justifies the assumption of
equivalence between countries even in making non-political comparisons.
Singapore and the U.S. can be compared on a variety of things because both are
countries, meaning both are recognized internationally as sovereign within
their respective territories.
With its strong desire,
ideology can eclipse reason and perception without leaving finger-prints.
Nationalism has likely been playing a subterranean role in the warping of
equivalence as in comparing E.U. states like France and Germany to the U.S.A.,
with the E.U.'s governance and the American States being deliberately
overlooked or even blocked from view in a sort of state of denial.
Even in comparative politics,
confounding the state and federal levels of both the E.U. and U.S. is
problematic. For instance, federalism came out of empire-level groupings
and has the greatest benefits for empires, which are by definition
heterogenous (diverse between provinces/states). To model the governance
system of the E.U. or U.S. on that of Sinapore (a city) would entail a greater
downside of uniform (i.e., union-wide) laws because in empires, "one size
does not fit all" of the circumstances of the states (e.g., significant
differences in coronavirus infection). Hence New York's government took much
more strict measures against the spread of coronavirus than did the government
of Kansas in March, 2020. Had the U.S. President handed down a severe, blanket
"lock-down," it would have gone unnoticed that several states did not
yet need that level of caution through government action. Hence, the state
governments were able to set policies according to their situations. As in the
case of the E.U. state governments, it was even possible for those American
governments to distinguish between their respective regions (or provinces) in
taking precautionary measures.[8] As a city, Singapore, unlike the states
(and empire-scale unions), could only have one situation. Rather
than being influenced by where sovereignty resides (at both the state and
federal levels in the U.S. and E.U.), the level at which comparison is best
made depends on what is the subject of comparison (e.g., coronavirus) and which
level (or cluster) of institutional and geographical political organization
(i.e., state, county/province, state/kingdom, or empire-scale country) presents
the greatest differences on the subject.
[1]. Jeffrey Sachs, “Why America Has the World’s Most Confirmed Covid-19 Cases,”
CNN.com, March 27, 2020 (accessed March 28, 2020).
[2]. Donald McNeil, “The U.S. Now Leads the World in Confirmed Coronavirus
Cases,” The New York Times, March 26, 2020.
[3]. Sachs, “Why America Has the World’s Most Confirmed Covid-19 Cases.”
[4]. Crispian Balmer and Gavin
Jones, “Italy Suffers Setback to Hopes Its Corronavirus Epidemic
Might Be in Retreat,” US News & World Report, March
26, 2020.
[5]. Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for
Transatlantic Comparisons (2015).
Athusius' theory of federalism is also discussed and applied.
[6]. I am thinking here of how
the presence of a black hole can be detected by looking at the warped orbits nearby
(their shape and relatively high speed).
[7]. Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for
Transatlantic Comparisons (2015).
[8] Lest it be argued that the
most suitable level of comparison is that of intra-state regional/provincial,
the state size-cluster is not so large that intrastate differences would be as
big as the interstate differences. However, the fact that the counties of Dane
(which contains the state capital city, Madison) and Milwaukee were both more
severely hit on March 26, 2020 than were the other counties suggests that state
governments had reason in at least once case to either have different policies
for counties or delegate the power to the county governments. Adopting the
county level for comparisons within or across empire-scale unions would not be parsimonious
and thus practical. Also, I suspect that the typical inter-county differences
were less than the inter-state differences. This is why I stopped at the state
level in assessing the best level of comparison generally.
