Naomi Klein hävdar i Chockdoktrinen att marknadsliberaler utnyttjar kriser för att genomdriva sin politik. Det kanske de gör. I vilket fall tycks tillväxtbefrämjare, liberala eller andra, kunna utnyttja kriser. En ny studie finner att kriser kan vara bra för ekonomisk tillväxt — i alla fall i demokratier:

Our results provide evidence that democratic political institutions help to ameliorate the
negative impact of economic crises on long-term growth. We conjecture that this result arises because democracies tend to deliver better policy responses in the aftermath of shocks. This means that, while there might be examples of benevolent dictators that react quickly and pursue good economic policies, on average, autocratic regimes are unable to handle crises well and deliver long-term growth. In other words, decisiveness—an attribute oftentimes assigned to autocratic regimes—does not imply that sound policies are implemented.

En implikation av studien är kanske att invånare i demokratiska länder inte ska känna sig alltför pessimistiska av nuvarande kris, såvida inte intressegrupper får alltför starkt inflytande på den nya politik som utformas. Som författarna skriver:

[I]f a country’s democratic institutions are strong, it may welcome crises as opportunities to learn and improve the policy stance. On the other hand, if institutions are weak, crises may not be useful to promote growthenhancing reforms. More likely than not, special interests might co-opt policy responses and crises will only end up hurting the public at the expense of more powerful interest groups.

Hursomhelst tycks det viktigt att ha perspektiv på kriser.