In Times of Coronavirus, there has been a great deal of talk about the danger of general confinement and the economic effects of shutting down an entire country. If people are quarantined in their homes for too long, they are perhaps safer from contagion, but confinement can have a negative impact on their mental health and/or family relationships. When people cannot work from home, they may lose their job, go into debt, and fall below the poverty level. All of this is a recipe for disaster.
On the other side of the coin, the only proven way to halt the pandemic and the explosion of coronavirus deaths is quarantine. Despite all of the whirlwind research being carried out, there is currently no effective treatment for Covid-19. If people do not practice social distancing, there is a greater probability of infection. This is what occurred in Milan, Madrid, and New York. The hospital system collapses; many people die; and there is no space in the morgues to store all of the dead bodies. This is also a recipe for disaster.
It is true that Covid-19 does not kill everyone that it infects, but it is a deadly gamble. No one can know whether virus symptoms will be a few sneezes or massive blood clotting. Like the Justinian plague in the 6th century or the Black Death in the 14th century, coronavirus survival, regardless of age, generally depends on the strength of one’s immune system accompanied by a generous dose of good fortune.
So governments throughout the world must choose which of these two disasters they wish to invite into their country. Since neither option is palatable, countries are trying to perform a tricky juggling act. They must find a way to maintain a delicate balance between nurturing public health (saving lives) and shoring up the economy (saving jobs).
It is like being Odysseus and being forced to navigate between Scylla, a six-headed monster that can eat one person with each head, and Charybdis, an enormous whirlpool, capable of swallowing an entire ship. Scylla would be Covid-19 and Charybdis, the looming recession that could sink the economy. There is no perfect choice because either way, collateral damage is inevitable.
Not surprisingly, the pandemic has led to a great deal of soul-searching regarding the value of life. From an economic perspective, how many deaths would be an acceptable trade-off to preserve a strong economy? What is the going rate for a human being?
Since humans are not securities that can be traded on the stock exchange, no one really knows. There are those, such as Governor Cuomo of New York, who say that each human life is priceless. There are others, such as President Trump, who state that a certain number of lives must be sacrificed for the greater economic good. This is evidently calculating damage to human health on a cost-benefit scale.
Many of us are horrified that human life should be valued in dollars, euros, pounds, or yen. But we should not be. If we look at the global picture, those who claim that no one can put a price tag on human life are clearly mistaken. Throughout history, this has been a common practice. In fact, there is no country in the world where life is priceless.
From a historical perspective, placing a monetary value on human life dates back at least to the 7th century as reflected in the Law of Æthelberht, the first Germanic-language law code.
The Anglo-Saxon price tag on human life is embodied in the concept of Wergild, whose Old English translation is “man price”. It is the value of a man’s life, payable to his family by his murderer (or dismemberer). The Wergild enabled the offender to escape death if economic sanctions were paid to the court.
For the death of a nobleman, payment was 300 shillings (equivalent to 300 oxen), whereas a churl was valued at 100 shillings (100 oxen). Since the Anglo-Saxons were a rowdy vengeful bunch (rather like mass shooters in Texas or Nevada), they had to be stopped from going berserk and killing everyone around them. Wergild was a bloodless way of protecting civil order, avoiding feuds, and keeping peace in Anglo-Saxon society.
Æthelberht’s code legislates the financial retribution for killing someone. The code is so specific that its rather lengthy section on personal injuries begins with the hair at the top of one’s head and ends with toenails. When the injury significantly lowered a person’s quality of life, payment was even greater. So, if a man lost a foot (loss of fighting capacity) or his genitals (loss of f**king capacity), the Wergild was even higher than if he had lost his life.
Odd as it may seem, civilization did not eradicate Wergild. This quaint custom has persisted over the centuries. In fact, payment of ‘blood money’ is still part of the legal code in many countries today, such as Japan, Korea, and Somalia. Just like in 7th century England, the money-penalty is paid by the murderer to the kinsfolk of the victim. The payment of this fine protects the offender from the vengeance of the injured family.
However, Wergild is not only found in far-off exotic countries. It also exists in Europe and the USA. Just ask any health insurance company. For insurance purposes, measurements used to estimate the cost of a human life include the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) and the value of the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY).
In fact, the current VSL price is $50,000 per year of quality life, whereas the QALY is $129,000 per year of quality life. This is the international standard most private and government-run health insurance plans use to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure. Unlike in Anglo-Saxon law, there is no mention of the social status of the person (noble or churl), but there are other considerations, such as age and previous conditions.
So each life does have a price. And if our leaders do not navigate their respective ships with great skill, many thousands of people will die, and the cost will be very high. It might be possible to make a rough estimate of the economic effects of the pandemic. However, there is no objective measure that can even remotely quantify the emotional devastation of so many deaths. Incalculable in money or oxen, the emotional Wergild for such a disaster might even include a presidential election.
