Trying to control a disease that killed a million Americans seems an odd form of “phobia”.

The principal foreign threat was the capricious London-based monarchy that could tax or impound wealth and property and impede trade, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The principal domestic threats were rebellious African slaves; rebellious subsistence and small-holding farmers, restive indentured servants and exploited “free” laboring classes; and Native Americans increasingly resisting encroachments on their lands and resources by settler colonialists (https://www.secondratedemocracy.com/its-undemocratic-origins/; http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinntyr4.html; http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnkin5.html; https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/we-the-elites/).

Property and wealth were already highly concentrated in the colonial period. In 1774–prior to the war of independence–it has been estimated that the wealthiest 1% of households in the 13 colonies owned about 16% of net wealth (defined as the value of assets minus the value of liabilities) with the wealthiest 10% owning about 60% of that wealth. Wealth disparities were even higher in urban areas like Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Wealth concentration became even more pronounced in the first century of the independent U.S. republic as the propertied class institutionalized and deepened its rule and expanded its geographic reach across the North American continent and beyond (see https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c7443/c7443.pdf, p. 37).

The Federal Reserve Bank estimates that by mid-2022, the wealthiest percentile of the U.S. population owned about 30% of total net worth, about twice the share owned by the colonial elites in 1774 with the top 10% owning about 69% (https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:132;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:all;units:shares). In the Silicon Valley, as indicated by the Joint Venture Silicon Valley report that is the subject of Mr. Lazo’s piece, wealth distribution is even more radically lopsided, a phenomenon that I have attributed to the “Stanford Effect.” That effect, when you examine it closely, comes down to the capture and control of the government apparatus and the use of public resources to enhance, protect and maintain private wealth accumulations.(https://sanjosespotlight.com/joint-venture-report-highlights-silicon-valley-wealth-gaps-and-tech-booms-san-jose-santa-clara-county/#comment-85924). All of this, of course, required the regular and robust use of state violence against native peoples, the Mexican army and striking workers over the centuries but that’s the formula used by the founding fathers and the one they passed on to their propertied settler colonial progeny.

“Q. Do areas of concern remain, even considering the strong economy and job market?
“A [by Hancock] . As an economist, I have to speak with both hands. On one hand, the economy is strong. On the other hand, the pandemic introduced pain and suffering, displacement, evictions, hunger. All those took place on the same landscape as that strong economy.

“Q. What are some of the lessons from the pandemic?
“A. It laid bare the injustice of our society. The world is not fair. The people who were most vulnerable were the most likely to lose their jobs, to be furloughed, or to be exposed to the disease.”

Perhaps San Jose Inside reporters can follow up with Hancock to get his explanation why a year ago he admitted the “world is unfair” in the wake of Covid lockdown decrees but now ways everything is completely fair.

This is scurrilous nonsense. The rules have not been fair.

Our local government decreed certain lines of work “non-essential” and shut them down during the Covid emergency decrees (which are still in effect three years on). Small retail businesses were shuttered and their owners and employees left without livelihoods, while the laptop class and government employees never missed a paycheck. Working class communities were predictably hit hardest.

Not only was this unfair, it was massive human rights violation of unprecedented scale. the Covid lockdown, among other things, was a war by the wealthy against the poor. Those who waged it need to be brought to justice.