Coronomics — The Covid-Induced Economy
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, or in short, SARS-CoV-2, is the strain of coronavirus that causes Coronavirus Disease 2019, a.k.a. COVID-19 — the pandemic that’s killed over a million people in just ten months and is only growing more virulent and violent. It’s also smashed the world’s economy.
Not seeing better a better option, governments are printing money as if there’s no tomorrow. But if they keep this up there will really be no tomorrow, at least not one we want to live in.
With countless houses and apartments standing vacant, and millions of people living on the streets, clearly, there is a fundamental flaw in the system.
Such a time, when the familiar is failing you, is the right time to think outside the box. We know that there are basic needs that people must have no matter what. Food, clothes, and housing are such basics. If people don’t have them, they will destroy the country simply by trying to survive. Therefore, the government, any government, must provide these basics or see that they are provided to every single citizen.
To guarantee provision of basic needs to everyone, the government must see that distribution reaches all the people. Currently, approximately half the food that is produced does not reach consumers either because its sell-by date expires before it’s bought, or because it’s trashed by manufacturers and/or retailers in order to keep the price up, or because transportation costs make distribution unprofitable.
What is true of food is just as true of clothes, tons of which are dumped at the end of each season, and even of housing. With countless houses and apartments standing vacant, and millions of people living on the streets, clearly, there is a fundamental flaw in the system.
You might say, “This is capitalism,” but it doesn’t make human sense to keep people on the street while there are plenty of houses they could occupy. And if capitalism doesn’t make human sense, then capitalism doesn’t make sense, not in today’s world anyway. In other words, it’s time to say goodbye to capitalism and adopt a more considerate and humane approach (though I suggest we leave it nameless for now).
The important thing right now is to help people understand that we are all accountable, and we are all responsible for one another and for all of nature. Our way of life has turned our planet into a giant dumpster. We are living in a dumpster but we complain when we get sick. It’s time we make the connection between how we live and how it all affects us.
So after everyone gets the basic needs for survival, it’s time to change our way of life, namely our attitude to one another. Capitalistic competition is destructive. It did let us out of the caves, but look where it got us. If we must compete, we should compete over who brings more people together, who unites them, who makes them caring and considerate rather than indifferent and selfish.
Of course, we can shrug this whole Covid-induced economy notion off and head back to capitalism, but it won’t work. Covid will kill every attempt to get back to 2019. And the longer we stall with the change, the harder and more painful Covid’s prodding will be. If there is one thing I wish for humanity, it is that everyone will quickly understand where we are going and use the cure I have just outlined before we suffer the blow.