By Philipp Bagus - August 25, 2021

Pressure on the unvaccinated grows. While the vaccinated in some countries are getting back some of their freedoms taken away by the covid interventions, the unvaccinated are not so well off. They are being targeted for discrimination. Access to public spaces and traveling is being made more difficult for them. In some countries there is even mandatory vaccination for some professions.

But why is the vaccination campaign so important to governments that they are increasing the pressure to such an extent? And who has an interest in the global vaccination campaign?

To answer these questions, it is necessary to analyze the prevalent vaccination narrative and ask who benefits from it. In doing so, the alliance of interests between the state, the media, the pharmaceutical industry, and supranational institutions must be addressed.

Let us start with the pharmaceutical industry. It has an obvious economic interest in the vaccination campaign. It makes enormous profits from widespread vaccination.

What about the state? In the covid-19 crisis, politicians have systematically amplified fear and hysteria. This was no accident and is unsurprising, for the state builds its raison d'être on the argument that it protects the population from internal and external dangers. The state is built upon fear. The narrative is that without the help of the state, the citizen would be defenseless against hunger, poverty, accidents, war, terrorism, disease, natural disasters, and pandemics. It is, therefore, in the state's interest to instill fear of possible dangers, which it then pretends to resolve, expanding its power in the process. A relatively recent example is the restriction of civil liberties in the US in response to the threat of terrorism after the 9-11 attacks and the second Iraq war. Similarly, it was in the interest of governments to purposefully instill fear and portray covid-19 as a unique killer virus in order to expand state power to an extent unknown in peacetime at the expense of citizens' fundamental rights.

When the corona crisis started and not much was known about the virus's potential danger politicians were faced with an asymmetric payoff. If politicians underestimate a danger and do not react, they are held responsible for the underestimation. They lose elections and power. Especially if they can be blamed for deaths. Photos of mass burials aside, the consequences of underestimating danger and failing to act are politically fatal. In contrast, overestimating the danger and taking decisive action are politically much more attractive.

If it really is an unprecedented threat, politicians are celebrated for their tough measures such as lockdowns. And politicians can always argue that without their decisive action, there would indeed have been a disaster. If the measures ultimately turn out to have been exaggerated because the hazard was not so great after all, the possible negative consequences of the measures are not as directly associated with the politicians as the photos of mass burials, because these consequences are more indirect and long term. The indirect and long-term health costs of lockdowns include suicides, depression, alcoholism, stress-related illnesses, earlier deaths from canceled surgeries and screenings, and a generally lower standard of living. However, these costs are not directly associated with the drastic interventions and blamed on the policy. Many of these consequences will occur after the next elections or even later and are not visible. For instance, we cannot observe to what extent a higher standard of living would have increased life expectancy. And if someone dies six years from now from alcoholism or depression developed in the wake of lockdowns, most people probably will not make the lockdown politicians responsible, and if they do, these politicians will possibly already be out of office. Thus, it is in the interest of politicians to overestimate a threat and overreact.

In order to justify and defend the harsh measures such as lockdowns that are so attractive to politicians, it is necessary to stir up fear . . .

[SNIP]