THE HOPE IS IN OURSELVES

There is a shadow of hopelessness in the world. The average citizen observes serious economic threats and an uncertain panorama in health matters. Along with that, it is affected by a political debate far from this reality, an absence of leadership on the part of the leaders, and a serious weakening of the institutionality. The serious problems that current circumstances have for the future warrant looking at what is happening to us in perspective. Nature and economic cycles have had a long history of critical impacts on the planet for thousands of years, those of modern history being closer to our memory. The most important thing is that humanity has come out of all of them. So, what we are currently experiencing will not be an exception, and it can be predicted that we will emerge from this crisis just as in the past.

We survived the ice age and there is no reason why we won't now. Previous pandemics have been even more devastating: The worst pandemic in modernity, for example, was HIV / AIDS, which left at least 36 million people dead. Thus also humanity came out of pandemics such as cholera, black plague, bubonic plague, among many others.

But there is also the occurrence of economic crises. Bondarenko recently wrote that there were five of the world's most devastating financial crises: The Great Depression of 1929-1931, triggered by the collapse of Wall Street. Today with the COVID19 nebula we are once again in the middle of a global recession that will mean a 3% drop in the world product (and -7.5% in the case of Chile). With the exception of the 1929 crisis, which generated immense unemployment and a deep drop in the product, all the other crises of the 20th century were smaller and limited in their geographical impact.

Observing the long historical duration, it remains as a conclusion that humanity has overcome terrible health and economic events, and that there seems to be no reason not to successfully get out of this new crisis that we are experiencing, considered by some as a kind of "end of World". Learning from history, a crisis is a period of uncertainty that may or may not lead to disaster, depending largely on the ability of the actors to respond effectively. The behavior of heads of government, parliamentarians and politicians, businessmen, and social leaders, is a key factor in getting out of a crisis like the current one. In health, social discipline is required, and in economic matters, the ability to make decisions with a long-term perspective and emphasis on the human.

This message must reach the common citizen. The recovery in economic matters, and the good progress in health matters, depends a lot on his hopeful vision. Disasters in different spheres occur and recur at different speeds and idiosyncratic ways, but in essence, they follow the same pattern. In short, we are all speculating about facts that are real, but when you examine the history of the disasters that have plagued humanity, it is clear that these crises repeat themselves in cycles. The only concrete thing is that nature gives us a small sample of its strength and the economy learns from its mistakes and it is up to global citizens to take action on its destiny.

Bernardo Javalquinto