CV19 Impact on Governments
“This time’s for keeps”
Do you remember playing marbles as a kid? You’d put your prize marble out as a prize and every other kid, crouching behind an agreed line, would fire their marbles at it, the first one to hit it won your marble, and you got to keep all the ones that missed. Often, there’d be a practise first, where the shooters got their marbles back. Practise was over when the owner of the prize marble called out, “now we’re playing for keeps”.
Citizens all around the world, locked inside their houses, must be looking at their governments and thinking, ‘soon, we’ll be playing for keeps’.
For governments around the world the slate has been wiped clean by this virus on all their mistakes, mis-handling of issues, ineffective policies and misdemeanours. What matters now, all that anyone in each country cares about, will be how their government handles the recovery from the pandemic. Whatever happened Before Corona will be largely forgotten – Bridgette Mckenzie can breathe a sigh of relief, her mismanagement of sporting grants will quickly recede from memory, although maybe she didn’t mismanage the program – the Coalition was re-elected.
The trend up to 2019 in economic stats like GDP growth, unemployment rate, income inequality will now be forgotten. 2020 is year zero for governments around the world. Voters will allow the trend lines to be broken: all measurement starts again in 2020.
From 2020, we’re all playing for keeps, there’s no more practise. If a government manages the recovery well, they’ll stay in government. That applies to all forms of government, which is why I used the term citizens earlier rather than voters deliberately: only the strongest authoritarian states will hold power through a failed recovery.
Leaders during this period will be judged on two dimensions – the management of the pandemic itself and the speed of recovery, with the latter being the most important. What caused a heavier infection rate or higher death rate in a particular country will be forgiven, if not forgotten – if a country recovers well.
The ability of a country to respond to the health impacts of the virus is a function not just of the current leadership but the policies of previous governments across a number of areas including emergency planning & preparation, strength of the health system, etc. This is why failures during the early period of the pandemic can be explained, and therefore forgiven.
The impact of the virus is universal, although uneven. We can expect that by the end of the pandemic every country, except a few lucky islands will have become infected, although the rate of infection and subsequent death rate will differ country to country.
The extent to which each country has been hit by the virus differs, as will the degree and length of any shutdown of the economy, so the starting point for each country at the end of the pandemic will be different. The extent to which a country relies on trade & tourism for their prosperity also heavily influences the starting point. An objective comparison of a country’s resurrection from the pandemic should take these into account. A citizenry that is struggling financially is unlikely to be objective.
A common year zero allows for easier comparisons between countries of the effectiveness of a particular country’s policies. There will be a greater ability to make more meaningful benchmarks of a government’s performance. The ease of comparison will expose more readily the success or otherwise of the approach adopted by each government, the result being an easier assessment by the citizens of failures of their leaders, feeding a growing impatience, resulting in a higher eviction rate of governments.
It is not that the expectations on governments will necessarily be greater, just that they will be watched and compared even closer than before.
For Australia, we can expect to see a return to agrarian socialism – privatise the profits and socialise the losses, as in the past, delivered by a conservative government. Already during the crisis the Liberal party has rediscovered the fabled ‘safety net’ and increased benefits for unemployed and wage subsidies.
Another consequence of the ease of comparisons, and something already developing during the pandemic is the agitation of people in a country to simply adopt the approach of another country: they’re doing it – why aren’t we.
Evident on social media and in comments on on-line newspapers was a desire from many people for their government to simply follow the actions of other countries, ‘they’re already in lockdown, why aren’t we’: consideration for the different situation of each country not evident. This behaviour will continue when people assess the policies put forward by their government to support recovery, limiting the ability of a country to follow it’s own path. In a sense this is a loss of sovereignty for many countries.
Especially concerning is when the country to be followed is authoritarian, rather than democratic. What we are seeing is a willingness to forgo openness and debate for swiftness of action with no realisation of the associated consequences in the form of reduced life choices, lack of appeal (judicial) and that very often the policy failures of such states are hidden.
Courageous governments will implement policies that suit the situation in their countries.
Devotees of ‘80’s cinema will recall these famous words from Risky Business:
“Sometimes in life you have to say ‘what the hell’,
What the hell gives you freedom,
Freedom brings opportunity,
Opportunity makes your future.”
While the task for governments is greater than before, so is their freedom to act. There is real fear of economic depression, and the possibility of social decay that is associated with prolonged economic stagnation. Fear in the populace provides a government with power.
The countries that succeed will be those whose governments are boldest with their reforms, and rather than attempt to keep alive the old businesses through restrictive laws instead provide the opportunity for new businesses to emerge.
Governments will no longer be bound by convention, or the test of prudence, or their previous ideologies, and we have seen this already with the shape of the massive stimulus packages. My concern though is that the freedom to act will be misused to reduce worker and consumer protections in the name of flexibility. Governments need to recognise that increasing the share of profits in favour of wages has resulted in reduced spending power, which ironically but expectedly, reduces profits.
In recent years we had seen a rise in populism: politicians offering overly simplistic solutions to garner mass appeal. Will the virus crisis end the trend; have the populists had their day and we’ll see a switch to technocrats.
Populists are in trouble, unless they resort to dropping their simplifying paradigm and slogans, and adopt the recommendations of experts. Typically a populist leader would find someone or something to blame for any problems that bedevilled their country. They can continue to follow that playbook, but only for so long: the comparison tables, starting from year zero, will be their undoing.
Populists that fail will be voted out, thrown out, or turn authoritarian.
The last great depression ushered in fascism: will we see such a shift away from democracy again? There were a number of factors that contributed to the rise of fascism, not just the economic depression, so fascism itself is unlikely to rise. However, as already stated, to avoid losing power authoritarian leaders may increase their control over their country.
There was an optimistic faith in the internet to undo the power of authoritarian governments, but this faith has been dispelled by the ability of many governments to control the flow of information over the internet, and to harness each new technology to provide greater monitoring of people and then control. In spite of this, in a travel constrained world, the internet may again be a cause for optimism in generating change.
