Yet Another Covid Victim : Capitalism

A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 8, 2021, Section S, Page 2 in The New York Times International Edition. ?

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the gap between the haves and have-nots and thrown capitalism into question: That is the conclusion reached by Joseph Stiglitz and Hervé Berville, two economists who spoke at this year’s Athens Democracy Forum, an annual event held in association with The New York Times.

Professor Stiglitz — winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, a former chief economist at the World Bank and a professor at Columbia University — said in a pre-conference interview that the private sector had proven incapable of responding alone to the global health challenge and that government had a big role to play.

Mr. Berville — a French deputy from the centrist party of President Emmanuel Macron and author of a 2018 report on reforming French aid policy — said in a separate conversation that rich countries had spent billions on themselves and done little to help those countries that needed it the most.

By Farah Nayeri.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/world/covid-pandemic-capitalism-stiglitz-berville.html