The Emergence Of A Better World? ….Don’t Believe The Hype: Why I’m Pessimistic About What Will Come After COVID-19

I would like to be more hopeful, rather than hoping for myself to be wrong, but I cannot go along with the positivity about the world’s future that I am seeing in the media and in my personal interactions in recent days. In this article, I describe why I think that positive change would require us to be having a really complicated, global debate on our entire economic system. That isn’t happening. In fact, regardless of the crisis mode we are in at present rendering it an impossibility, we’ve been ill-equipped to have that sort of conversation for a long time now….

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Some Statements About Myself:

1.      I’m not pessimistic because I’m currently in a pit of despair due to isolation. I’m very lucky to be in the countryside on the south coast of England, surrounded by family, with plenty of internal and external space. I am aware of how fortunate I am given the current situation. I would rather the world wasn’t at risk and we were all able to move and assemble freely, but I’m very conscious of that fact that my life – albeit changed by COVID-19 – has not been adversely impacted.

2.      I’m not a revolutionary. I own a house and have a baby. I’ve got ‘skin in the game’ and am not hoping for some kind of new order.

3.      I reject labels that connect me to political parties or ‘left’ and ‘right’ on the political spectrum. The labels ‘left’ and ‘right’ don’t work for me - they’re incomplete, archaic and divisive.

“I’m not saying this one pandemic is going to cause permanent social change. I’m saying this pandemic could be the factor that pushes this lever. The fulcrum is the longstanding set of changes. There’ll be an attempt to return back to normalcy, but that won’t work. Time has moved on. There was going to be social and economic change anyway, and any attempt to ignore that will run up against economic reality.” – Professor Lynette Nusbacher [1]

Like the quote above from Esquire, a lot of people in my life – my mother; my father-in-law – are envisaging this crisis as a galvanising point for positive adjustments to be made to global society. My outlook is a lot more pessimistic. As much as I want to be incorrect in this feeling, I just don’t believe our species is in a good place to move into a better tomorrow – especially if things get tougher in the coming months. I think any positivity that comes from the sense of unity we may all feel at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic will dissipate the way it does as crowds who have shared a moment at an incredible concert or sporting event drift off into the night after it ends. Overwhelming, indescribable emotions that somehow fade into nothing lasting as we return to the lives we had before.

We can take the Second World War as the last time something like this happened. There was a lot of post-war economic inclusiveness that came after it and ran until Thatcher/Reagan: wages of those at the top rising at roughly the same rate as wages of the workers lower down the chain, and the creation of the NHS in the U.K., for example. But the social and political context heading into that period was different to now. Roosevelt’s New Deal, as a response to the Great Depression in America from the mid-30s onwards, was already incredibly progressive for its day.

Today, we find ourselves in a totally different position. The neoliberal capitalist model that Thatcher/Reagan embodied emerged and it has had 40 years to take hold, giving it chance to deeply ingrain certain assumptions into the way people think. So, the world has had an extended period of going in the wrong direction economically. Neoliberal capitalism is bad for capitalism. It makes it, by definition, unsustainable. That would be ok if we were using it to get somewhere while we were thinking of a better model, but we aren’t.[2] Exacerbated inequality eventually becomes almost as bad for the rich as it is for the poor.

Even some obscenely rich people hold this view. Ray Dalio is a Hedge Fund founder, estimated to be worth around $20 billion, and last year he wrote that current capitalism is failing the majority of Americans and needs to be reformed. Why? Because concentrated and restrained wealth does not benefit the overall economy and destabilises society.[2]

Globally, we are propping up an economic model that suits a few people, even though in the last 12 years it’s failed twice and required massive state intervention. It doesn’t make me a communist to point out that a system which constantly looks to deconstruct the state yet requires the state to magically reappear to bail it out, isn’t a system that works.

Why Do We Prop Up A System That Doesn’t Work?

Because we lack collective awareness, we don’t believe we have a really good alternative and – perhaps most crucially – the system we have clearly feels very right for those who make the rules.

One of the core reasons I am pessimistic about the aftermath of COVID-19 is that those people will be in a stronger position than ever to continue to make the rules after this crisis because they will be the only group with access to liquid cash. To an even greater extent than they are now. Everyone else will be on their knees and desperate, mentally and economically.

Psychologically, as well, after this form of shock treatment, people will be exceptionally keen to go back to being able to buy shit they don’t need and can’t afford. It will feel desirable on its own, aside from the system encouraging it. We’ll want ￡25 a week on Starbucks and consumerism as medication because those things will become representations of “freedom” and “getting back to normal” when compared to our current prison. We’ll all need therapy, and the therapy we’ll be pointed towards will be retail therapy.

When you combine these factors with the undoubted talents of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump for tapping into the moods of the people and accessing vast swathes of public support, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of the already powerful to push really hard to turn the world back to where it has been.

In Short: Nobody is talking about a fundamental restructuring of our entire economic model, even though events like this prove how ill-equipped it is for mitigating shocks.

Pessimistic Prediction: The way Greece was lumbered with unimaginable repayments to others when it went bust after the last crash - I could see it being like that, just for enormous numbers of people globally.

What Might Change:

What I can imagine changing is the way we see people on benefits - viewing them as valuable not for their productivity, but for their consumption. That’s quite a logical extension of the social media model that already works so effectively. The price people pay for free access to platforms is sharing their personal and purchasing preference data.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is something that gets a lot of attention in these times. However, for various reasons, I don’t like it as a practical plan for our current situation:

Firstly, we’re in a time of polemics and over-simplification of complicated topics. I think public discussion on UBI, when combined with the policies that will be needed alongside it, will prove too complex a conversation to be had sensibly across society.[4]

Secondly, you can’t build something without strong foundations. UBI is favoured by opposites of the political spectrum for totally different reasons. Some would have it as part of a stronger state; some would have it as part of removing the state further and giving people money to spend on what they choose instead of investing in public services.

My position fits with the first group, and I don’t believe in Universal Basic Income on its own.[4] I certainly wouldn’t support implementation of UBI until we have a consensus that it would not come in as a justification for further deconstruction of the state.

In reference to my opening disclaimer, for anyone who considers this to be aligned with Labour / Bernie Sanders / The Left: There is no evidence connecting this to Labour with regards to how I have seen it present itself as a party. I never saw one iota of genuinely modern or innovative economic policy from Jeremy Corbyn on topics like this. Going back a bit, I never saw Tony Blair or Gordon Brown do anything that went against the status quo in terms of the fundamental economic model (for most of their years in government, and the period before, the world had very little idea that the 2008 crash was coming).

Why Do I Want A Strong State?

I like this period of strong state. If anyone has a bad word to say about the NHS as a concept right now, I would happily defend it. Currently, because we all chip-in to that system, thousands of people are receiving care that is saving their lives. Last Summer, when my partner required two emergency operations, one hours and one weeks after the birth of our son, probably around 20 well-qualified people (nurses, anaesthetists, doctors, consultants) helped to make sure that our lives weren’t profoundly impacted in a negative way. Maybe Anna and Ollie would have survived the same circumstances out in the woods a thousand years ago, but it would have been a lot more physically and psychologically painful for us and our immediate families. So, I would pay more tax to ensure we could pay medical staff more, I would pay more tax so more people to train to be medical staff, and I would make their shifts shorter. The wealth is in the system for that to be affordable, it just isn’t distributed very evenly, so it’s very easy for the rich, who stand to pay most to persuade other groups that the idea of ‘more tax’ is unaffordable.   

To my mind, it’s good for capitalism when people have security as they can contribute without having to think super short-term. I think more people will be in a better position to come up with new ideas, drive progress and participate in economic growth if the state takes care of some core things to a reasonable level. Healthcare is one area. I would also make the same arguments for Housing, and Education (up to and including advanced education / vocational qualification).

There is clear logic and evidence to promote investing in people. Although every rule has exceptions, as a general principle, people whose human needs are taken care of find it much easier to add value to the world around them – personally and professionally.

Take the number of privately educated children that end up working in finance, professional services and politics as adults. Two of those three groups are highly economically productive, and I’m sure work very hard. They have been given things they haven’t earned – how could they have earned a private education as children, for example? – and they haven’t been made weaker as a result of the start in life afforded through their familial wealth.

That’s because a human’s default setting is to be engaged and to want to make a contribution. You only need to watch a small child to know that our species’ natural state is one of activity not laziness.

Therefore, providing those less well off, or people facing times of struggle, with state support would obviously not make people lazy.[6]

In the U.K., our last three Prime Ministers – David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson – were all educated at ‘independent schools’. Two of them went to Eton College. Remove the boarding school, exclusive aspect and see the word ‘Eton’ as a representation of investment in a child. I don’t understand why politicians who have benefited from such charity during formative years wouldn’t want to replicate the best quality possible for as many people as possible in order to drive society forward. Where direct family cannot provide that, the state should provide a support net. That doesn’t mean we should try to turn everywhere into Eton, but we could easily raise the minimum threshold for what ‘best quality possible’ means in practice, when it comes to investment across our population.

[1] https://www.esquire.com/uk/life/a31915611/coronavirus-timeline/

[2] That’s not to say the last 40 years have been all bad. We’ve made some noticeable moral leaps during that time. Nonetheless, things like the Me Too movement and many race-related topics of the last few years alone highlight that we are just scratching the surface when it comes to building a fair and just global society.

[3] https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/why-how-capitalism-needs-reformed-parts-1-2-ray-dalio/

[4] Here’s a great listen on how the Alaskan Permanent Fund Dividend. It’s not identical to a UBI, but the programme highlights some of the complex challenges that implementing a UBI would throw up. ‘BBC Radio 4 – Universal Basic Income: Alaska Style’ (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gl9m)

[5] I think Universal Basic Income should be part of a three-pronged system, along with Land Value Tax and increased democratisation of the Bank of England.  For more on these, look at: https://neweconomics.org/2019/11/funding-local-government-with-a-land-value-tax and https://positivemoney.org/

[6] For more on this check out: 'Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us' by Daniel Pink.

Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer of Google X, also has some fantastic insights on this area, which can be heard here: https://howtofail.podbean.com/e/how-to-fail-m-gawdat-c19/