Wolf: Covid Has Exposed Society’s Dysfunctions—Noted
Martin Wolf: Covid Has Exposed Society’s Dysfunctions https://www.ft.com/content/e3db59e8-8fda-45ed-a99e-f4385168f58a: ‘We are living in an era of multiple crises: Covid-19; a crisis of economic disappointment; a crisis of democratic legitimacy; a crisis of the global commons; a crisis of international relations; and a crisis of global governance. We do not know how to deal with all of these... because politics cannot deliver the necessary changes.... The Great Transformation, by Karl Polanyi... much the better guide. If we wish to avoid a political breakdown, we should not seek to suppress markets, but we must surely temper their gales...
...In the UK, that challenge was recognised at the time by two great thinkers: John Maynard Keynes, who focused on macroeconomic stabilisation, and William Beveridge, who developed the plan for a welfare state. Much of our debate now is again on how to support economic security. Answers will again have to integrate macroeconomics with microeconomics. These are the two central economic elements in the renewal of the idea of citizenship. Yet this sense of responsibility, as Keynes understood, also has to be global....
At present, alas, the most potent force in world politics is a resurgent nationalist authoritarianism, as in the interwar period. With the exception of the Chinese regime, the common feature of these autocrats is the performance of personal power. The leaders have little interest in the complexity of purposeful policy. Instead, they offer their supporters the red meat of gladiatorial combat....
Yet, it is not by any means hopeless. The politics of some democracies still seem sane and effective. The EU seems to be pulling together, at last. The sheer incompetence of the nativist populists has at least become clear. Maybe, many members of the old working class will start to see US president Donald Trump as the fraud he is. Maybe, a coalition of radical, yet sensible, reformers will re-emerge, to re-engineer domestic policies and global politics. Perhaps, the Covid-19 crisis itself will catalyse this. But it will take both will and the talent to create new coalitions of ideas and interests.
In the end, change is always about politics. Policy proposes. Politics disposes...
.#noted #2020-07-24 <https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-wolf-covid.pdf>
