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- The world will undoubtedly change after Covid-19.
- Whether it will change for the better remains to be seen.
- If we don't study the past and learn from it, we can't hope to understand the present or plan for the future.
Are we on the cusp of a new, more egalitarian and democratic post-pandemic world or are we merely transitioning to yet another change of form, but not of substance — and one that may be even nastier than what preceded it?
It's a very important question since, right across the spectrum, from corporate capitalists and governments to labour movements and rank and file activists, the cry is that the world cannot go back to "normal".
Covid-19 has revealed even more clearly the obscene inequality on top of the dangerous pollution to the planet that corporate global capitalism has wrought. And this has triggered increasing calls for a new, united, global structure.
Yet, if we don't study the past and learn from it, we cannot understand the present or plan sensibly for the future. This is something that, hopefully, is being seriously considered, especially within the labour movement, amid growing calls to "reimagine" a post-pandemic world.
So far, there is little sign of this.
To a lesser degree, there are also demands within sections of the labour movement for greater state regulation and control, sometimes equated with the "communism" of China.
But the only thing compassion has in common with capitalism and communism (either Chinese or Soviet-style) is the fact that all three terms start with the letter C. Compassionate capitalism is, in fact, a contradiction in terms because the essence of the system is profit-driven competition, in which compassion has no place unless it advances profitability.
This is the simple, underlying fact of the modern corporate world, a world that Adam Smith, hailed as the "father of free market (laissez faire) capitalism" would have found abhorrent. Mainstream economists, for example, either do not know, or forget to mention, that Smith opposed the shareholder companies that evolved into the global corporate monsters of today. He agreed that they were inherently prone to corruption and supported the British government's restrictions - and effective 105-year ban - on such creations.
Those who pay the piper call the tune
It is an historical lesson worth looking at - as is the introduction in the mid-19th century of limited liability for the owners of capital. This seems especially pertinent as the route usually promoted as the way toward a "reimagined capitalism" is the social compact (or contract): presented as the coming together of business, governments and "civil society" to the supposed benefit of all. But this is an oil and water mix, since the fundamental interests of the protected owners of capital and those of the sellers of labour are diametrically opposed.
It is here that the state and the ultimate control of its policies and direction become critically important. And that old adage: they who pay the piper, call the tune, comes very much into play. Governments, around the world, claiming to be democratic, form the managerial layer that acts in the interests of maintaining the stability of a system based on the maximisation of profit for unelected competing corporations. In the case of countries such as China, there is a fusion of the state, claiming to represent the majority, and capital. But both are versions of the same system, being based on the extraction of profit at the expense of the exploitation of the majority.
This system of governance has evolved over recent centuries, largely as a result of often bitter and bloody struggles by exploited and oppressed majorities. Demands for better pay and working conditions, for the right to vote and for education and healthcare. Each advance was fought for, won and sometimes lost, or even grossly distorted over time.
And there was, throughout these struggles, always a minority among the majority who argued that it was necessary wholly to transform the system; that it was necessary to seize the whole cake, rather than settle for yet another small slice.
At times of crisis, such as today, when the glaring contradictions of wealth and poverty tend to become increasingly obvious, these calls to overturn and democratise the entire system tend to gain greater traction. It is then that concessions are promised and incremental gains tend to arrive.
A very good early example of this was in 1883 when Count Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of Germany, faced with increasing demands from the working class for wholesale change, delivered a raft of welfare provisions. These were among the demands of the majority and, for Bismarck and the ruling class, they did the trick: the majority of workers relaxed, having won what they considered their basic demands.
They had benefitted at the cost of their bosses and rulers. But, for the elite, it was a cost worth bearing, because the benefits of remaining in control far outweighed the cost of the welfare provisions. And these, in any event, could, when conditions permitted, be clawed back. In other words, nothing, fundamentally, had changed.
And that, in various different forms, is the history of advances and retreats as humanity has made its erratic way forward. The course now, in a pandemic-ridden early 21st century, seems to offer either a collapse into barbarism, the development of a humane and democratic order, or the continued, gradual despoliation of the planet and all that may remain on it.
The choices are ours. But whatever choices we make, let us hope they take full cognisance of history.
Terry Bell is a writer, journalist, broadcaster, social activist and sometime teacher. He has catholic interests, but specialises in political and economic analysis and labour.
