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Politics

¿El COVID-19 reconstruirá al mundo?

Apr 6, 2020 Dani Rodrik

CAMBRIDGE – Las crisis vienen en dos variantes: aquellas para las que no podíamos estar preparados, porque nadie las había anticipado, y aquellas para las que deberíamos haber estado preparados, porque en verdad eran esperables. El COVID-19 entra en la segunda categoría, no importa lo que diga el presidente norteamericano, Donald Trump, para eludir responsabilidades por la catástrofe que se está desarrollando. Aunque el propio coronavirus es nuevo y el momento en que se produjo el brote actual podría no haberse previsto, los expertos reconocían que una pandemia de este tipo era probable.

Los brotes de SARS, MERS, H1N1 y ébola, entre otros, habían ofrecido grandes advertencias. Hace quince años, la Organización Mundial de la Salud revisó y actualizó el marco global para responder a los brotes, intentando reparar las deficiencias percibidas en la respuesta global que se experimentaron durante el brote del SARS en 2003.

En 2016, el Banco Mundial lanzó un Mecanismo de Financiamiento de Emergencia para Casos de Pandemia para ofrecer asistencia a los países de bajos ingresos frente a crisis sanitarias transfronterizas. Lo más curioso es que, pocos meses antes de que estallara el COVID-19 en Wuhan, China, un informe del gobierno de Estados Unidos advirtió a la administración Trump sobre la posibilidad de una pandemia de gripe de la magnitud de la epidemia de gripe hace cien años, que acabó con la vida de unos 50 millones de personas en todo el mundo.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 29 Comments on this article

Nitish Kashyap Jul 25, 2021

As you elaborated in the next paragraph the mode of this confirmation bias, I am curious as how do you conclude that the end results would be continuing death of neoliberalism, stronger populist autocrats and struggling left without discussing the interplay of these dominant conflicting tendencies in aggregate around the globe.
In your article you have highlighted the interesting contrasts from Italy, USA which gives us much hope for informed, learned and progressive practiced adopted by governments. What makes you think this does not pave way for an alternate future than what you have imagined?
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Adriana Esmeralda Apr 29, 2020

Excelent article. For me, COVID has already started remaking the world. Everyone's way of thinking and acting has been changed. From the people in the top, such as presidents of different nations, as well as blue collar employees and even unemployed people.
I own a small company (https://www.realgramas.com.br/) and the COVID has hit hard to us.
Once things gets better, everyone will see things differently and give much more value on the small things.
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Michael Harrington Apr 12, 2020

No real surprise here. The natural behavioral response to a crisis of risk and uncertainty is a heightening of group selection and group competition for resources.
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Maurice Simpson Apr 12, 2020

The description of how different countries reacted to this contagious viral disease is accurate. Clearly, some governments have been more proactive and their population acted more responsibly than others. But the death toll isn’t yet known, or even predictable, for the laggards. Same is true for the price of the stalled economies, in terms of unemployment and social misery.

In view of both the human and economic destruction caused by COVID-19, to assume that most democracies of the world will act as if nothing happened is a stretch. Au contraire, expect voters to start putting their own interests ahead of the empty promises that their elected officials made. Those who have been cheerleading vs. leading will be exposed and voted out - On the condition that they live in a “functional” democracy.
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Jay Kay Apr 12, 2020

By its very nature Globalism and all its trappings add to the probability of the advent of pandemic, financial collapse, economic collapse, social collapse, and or world war.

As a loaded submachine gun adds to the probability of a negative outcome in any given round of Russian roulette.
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Dirk Faegre Apr 12, 2020

So we can all agree that the world blinded itself to a coming pandemic, right? The indicators were there and are unrefutable now. We should have known better.

Now we all know there's another crisis coming (actually it's here already) and it's a good bit more devastating than coronavirus: Global Warming. I am saddened that it's not in the news right alongside the pandemic. Are we to do the same "I didn't realize" again even with the warnings that are clear, obvious and proven? I think so. Facing big trouble is sooo much easier when we wait for it to smack us directly than to plan ahead and admit we're getting in trouble and need to take action. Stand by for Round-2.
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Per Kurowski Apr 12, 2020

If the percentage of those under 40 years of age that die of all causes, is higher than the percentage rate of that same age group that die from coronavirus, 0.26% in Italy April 11, how can it make any sense to subject the younger to a quarantine and its economic consequences?
http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2020/03/financial-escape-valves-in-times-of.html
- Curtis Carpenter Apr 12, 2020
  
  Because one can spread the disease to others regardless of their age, and some (young and old both) will die as a consequence?
  - Per Kurowski Apr 12, 2020
    
    Of course... but isolate the older... or have the older self-isolate like in Sweden... but let the young out.
    - Curtis Carpenter Apr 12, 2020
      
      I suppose I should ask how many dead (regardless of age) you find to be an acceptable price for being "let out." But somehow, I suspect it would be fruitless.
      
      Wouldn't it be even better to concentrate people over 50 in large camps where they could be assigned productive work that would keep them out of the way and busy until they die?
      - Michael Harrington Apr 12, 2020
        
        You’re muddying the point here with false moral equivalencies and choices. It’s not a question of trade offs between deaths, it’s a question of how to minimize deaths under any scenario.
        
        Curtis Carpenter Apr 12, 2020
        
        No. I don't think I'm "muddying the point," nor did I suggest that it is a question of "trade offs between deaths."
        
        Would you like to explain your understanding of "false moral equivalences" -- in this context, or any other?
        
        Michael Harrington Apr 12, 2020
        
        "I should ask how many dead (regardless of age) you find to be an acceptable price for being "let out.""
        
        I think you do understand the moral underpinnings and condemnation behind this rhetorical question. No deaths are acceptable and zero deaths are impossible, so asking such questions is merely a rhetorical device that makes a false moral equivalence. It would be the same if I asked you how many deaths caused by an economic crisis are acceptable. Your allusion to "concentration camps" is the same thing. Neither is helpful to the debate.
        
        Curtis Carpenter Apr 12, 2020
        
        Not worth a response.
        
        Michael Harrington Apr 12, 2020
        
        True. We can only hope you will follow your own advice.
        
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Peter Whitelaw Apr 9, 2020

I appreciate the fact of social inertia as outlined in this article. However, past trends are not necessarily predictors of the future (as any investor knows). One could as well argue that crises can create spaces in which societies are open to shifts, whether these shifts intensify a trend as the author suggests, or reverse them.
For example, a large proportion of US households live "paycheque to paycheque". After this, how many will make a stronger commitment to having a rainy day fund on hand? I would be surprised if COVID-19 did not drive a major increase in savings rates, reversing a decades-long trend. Businesses and individuals may similarly reduce their financial leverage in order to make them less vulnerable to economic shocks.
At the end of the day, we have agency, and a time of crisis is a time of opportunity. If we want to see a shift or a reversal in recent trends, it is up to us to drive that shift. That's what Victor Orban has done to continue to concentrate power, and there is no reason to think other, better shifts are not equally possible.
- Michael Harrington Apr 12, 2020
  
  Yes, perhaps we will become much more human by becoming far more decentralized and autonomous. Humanity is a face to face thing.
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Junior Garcia Apr 9, 2020

It is practically impossible to anticipate serious events, but it does not mean that we cannot consider the possibility of occurrence. In this sense, ecological economists have been working for decades with this possibility, the occurrence of events with great impact on society and the Economy. But unfortunately, we have not been heard by governments, society and academia. If the possibility of this type of event had been considered by decision makers, we might have been better prepared to face the situation. Will we learn something? Will we consider research beyond conventional orthodoxy and heterodoxy in economics, for example, research by ecological economists?
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N C Apr 8, 2020

I don't understand why a catalyst that intensifies already-existing trends cannot produce pathways to meaningful change at a systemic level. Nearly any systemic change happens as a result of interactions among trends, many of which are not new but had previously produced an equilibrium. Aren't there second or third order effects of the intensification of trends that would not appear but for the catalyst? And it seems to me those effects can upset the equilibrium or produce a new one.

A brief explanation of his underlying view of systems and change could help me understand why the intensification of trends is meaningless or irrelevant.
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Philip Edge Apr 7, 2020

On general government characteristics this argument is undoubtedly true. This question becomes interesting where internal divides come to the fore and internal power struggles intensify. Take the case of Germany, in which the conservative party is struggling whether to move towards the right with Friedrich Merz or continue on a centrist course.
For the time being it seems as though the crisis is stabilising governing power but depending on crisis management this may change drastically. In other words, CoVid-19 will certainly not reverse countries' trajectories but it may still lead to dramatic shifts of power between fractions which are already mobilised.
This is where the left may also stand a chance: In the US Bernie Sanders has been advocating for health care for all. Less successfully, Corbyn's last campaign was focused around the NHS and mobilised a significant minority constituency.
As the focus of politics shift, so may power in countries where it is not too cemented.
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john zac Apr 6, 2020

Who know? Maybe Chinese immune systems are better conditioned to fight this type of virus. We won't really know anything till we see numbers we can trust. The truly sad part of all of this experience is the fact that people seem to lack in the agency to self organize and to self rule, thus destroying the concept of autonomy . Trump's errors have been well documented but couldn't Cuomo or the mayor have shut down the subways? It seems no one can make the right decisions thus trapping us in a world of self aggrandized despots that may take orders from capital, computers or even their flawed ego
- Michael Harrington Apr 12, 2020
  
  Agree. More autonomy and self reliance that also lays the foundation for social community.
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- Petey Bee Apr 6, 2020
  
  There is only one kind of government which would be willing to pay the perceived* economic price of responding in time (within 2-3 weeks of when all the signs of an out of control lethal infectious disease outbreak are unequivocally evident) ...
  
  That type of government is neither capitalist nor socialist nor authoritarian nor democracy. It is one which has experienced the situation before (or in a significantly less likely scenario, one that has the humility to learn from others.)
  
  Trump, Cuomo etc all knew that if they took action and crashed the stock market before there were enough dead bodies in the street, their political careers would end. Repub and Dem the same in this regard. In authoritarian countries where oligarchs play the part of the merciless market, the dynamic is the same.
  
  ---
  *in reality the economic cost of delaying response is far higher. But there are no known organizational structures that reward prevention.
  - Dirk Faegre Apr 12, 2020
    
    "They" did not crash the stock market. It had been hanging in the balance for some time. All it needed was a gentle push to go into a dive -- which it did.
    
    Recall that there was the sufferance of inverted yields on and off for some time. Paying negative interest had always been an indicator of trouble on the way. The market was clearly over heated and in need of a 'correction'; exceptionally low oil prices were causing worldwide trouble; auto companies had been facing problems for some time; China tariffs; Boeing was in a mess (737Max) with no end in sight and all the while investors were busy jumping for joy at their good fortunes while "sitting in their counting houses counting all their winnings" -- the market was due to fall off the cliff and the push came from a pandemic.
    I'd suggest that anyone who couldn't see it coming before the pandemic, wasn't paying attention and should have learned from the housing market bubble when it was equally obvious that a crash was coming -- housing prices will never, ever, "go up forever" and we know that if we're willing to get a grasp on reality. It took Fed Chairman Greenspan years to grasp that, which demonstrates how blind we can be when we're blinded by 'free income'.
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  - john zac Apr 6, 2020
    
    They didn't crash the stock market...Capital crashed the market or the few that control the capital. And let's not forget Buffet sold transports last week and that's a leading indicator
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Godfree Roberts Apr 6, 2020

"China’s response was typically Chinese: suppression of information about the prevalence of the virus, a high degree of social control, and a massive mobilization of resources once the threat became clear."

Nonsense. China did not suppress information. The late Dr. Li was also late with his social media share: Wuhan Central Hospital had raised the alarm two days before his irresponsible leak precipitated panic.
- Remi Chukwudi Okeke Apr 6, 2020
  
  So? Suppression of information by China here does not specifically mean suppression by the Chinese authorities. "The late Dr. Li was also late with his social media share". So, information was "suppressed" in China.
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