What will the long-term political consequences be?
By this, im thinking about what kind if world will emerge after the virus is done? I think that the Western World could be entering a period of more state power and monopoly capitalism.
I dont think everything will return to how it was because every crisis this big in history has produced major changes. The New Deal and the European welfare state social democracies emerged from the twin shocks of the Great Depression and WW2. Globalised Neo-Liberal capitalism emerged through Thatcher and Reagan though was only possible because of the OPEC oil crisis brought a huge recession in the seventies.
Any crisis leads existing 'common sense' to collapse because people question things like they never did before and are prepared to entertain ideas which were once thought as heresy. 'Never let a crisis go to waste' is a saying which illustrate this point.
The forces which are best positioned to take advantage are the nationalist right and big capitalist monopolies. I think they will work in tandem to remake the post viris world in their image.
Every time there is a major recession, smaller firms go bust and bigger companies take up more space. This will the same in steroids this time because its 'too big to fail' corporations which will be bailed out by the government. This will deepen the already massive cronyism and revolving door relationships between government and big business.
The nationalist right are also positioned to do well on many countries and there are great efforts already being put in to blame the crisis on 'globalism' and immigration.
Governments will (in the next month) transition to a war time economy and use state inteventionist models long advocated by the radical left. In the 1940s, this did prove that some kind of 'socialism' could work and it laid the foundations for progressive state activism that dominated the next few decades.
This time is different though because there is an absense of strong union movements pushing for rights. The new breed of Conservatives happy to use protectionism and state intervention for their own ends though they will never go against their own class interests.
So the tldr is that i think we could be enteting an era of nationalist state monopoly capitalism. This could look someting like Viktor Orban's Hungary. This protect workers more than many states but has limited civil rights or dissent. Its ethno nationalist, isolationist and run by cronyism between government and business leaders.
I hope Im wrong but fear that im not.
I dont think everything will return to how it was because every crisis this big in history has produced major changes. The New Deal and the European welfare state social democracies emerged from the twin shocks of the Great Depression and WW2. Globalised Neo-Liberal capitalism emerged through Thatcher and Reagan though was only possible because of the OPEC oil crisis brought a huge recession in the seventies.
Any crisis leads existing 'common sense' to collapse because people question things like they never did before and are prepared to entertain ideas which were once thought as heresy. 'Never let a crisis go to waste' is a saying which illustrate this point.
The forces which are best positioned to take advantage are the nationalist right and big capitalist monopolies. I think they will work in tandem to remake the post viris world in their image.
Every time there is a major recession, smaller firms go bust and bigger companies take up more space. This will the same in steroids this time because its 'too big to fail' corporations which will be bailed out by the government. This will deepen the already massive cronyism and revolving door relationships between government and big business.
The nationalist right are also positioned to do well on many countries and there are great efforts already being put in to blame the crisis on 'globalism' and immigration.
Governments will (in the next month) transition to a war time economy and use state inteventionist models long advocated by the radical left. In the 1940s, this did prove that some kind of 'socialism' could work and it laid the foundations for progressive state activism that dominated the next few decades.
This time is different though because there is an absense of strong union movements pushing for rights. The new breed of Conservatives happy to use protectionism and state intervention for their own ends though they will never go against their own class interests.
So the tldr is that i think we could be enteting an era of nationalist state monopoly capitalism. This could look someting like Viktor Orban's Hungary. This protect workers more than many states but has limited civil rights or dissent. Its ethno nationalist, isolationist and run by cronyism between government and business leaders.
I hope Im wrong but fear that im not.
41-45, M
