Thanks for the thoughtful response. As you noted, some of this is just stylistic polemics — a fun, even cathartic, writing and reading exercise for people who are fed up with disingenuous arguments being made about how government-led pandemic responses somehow equal a permanent tyranny.

That being said, I will quibble on the point that 19th century downturns were less destructive that those today. What’s the metric here? Is it purely in terms of economic growth and capital? Or do we consider social metrics as well? We can say that the late 19th century’s Gilded Age was accompanied by a much higher rate of political and social violence than today; anarchists, socialists, and others carried out acts of terrorism at much greater frequency (Wall Street bombing, though that was 20th century), while economic inequalities drove strike action that could be, at times, deadly (Haymarket Affair). Even from the standpoint of market efficiency, the age also led to the formation of irrational monopolies that only the state could break up through laws like the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.