The prominent US economist gave a keynote lecture as part of the sessions of Future Congress 2021, Chile’s major scientific event, held virtually and scheduled to conclude on Thursday, after focusing his attention on the pandemic.
Stiglitz stated that neoliberlism has denigrated the significance of the governments’ role for four years and privileged the uncontrolled action of markets, that’s why many States have found themselves in a poor situation to face the present health crisis.
The Indiana University professor considered that the most successful nations in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic have been those ‘boasting effective governments, strong institutions and good science.’
He added that the pandemic has hit more those nations with profound inequalities, where there is no universal access to healthcare systems and have poor social protection, and also said ‘for this reason the United States has been one of the most hit, with 25 percent of cases, despite having only 4 percent of the world’s population.’
It is about a country ‘that does not recognize the access to the healthcare system as a basic human right’, and assured that the poor sectors ‘have suffered more deaths, greater exposure to the disease and greater loss of health income’.
