In Part 1 I explored seven myths about coronavirus that are being used to obscure the truth, shift responsibility and perpetuate existing power and privilege. In Part 2 I examine the failure over the last twenty years of governments and corporations to fulfil their risk management responsibilities to prevent and prepare for a viral pandemic. We need a new breed of managers if we want the post-COVID world to tackle the serious problems besetting humanity in the 21st century.
Government ministers, heads of government departments, vice chancellors of universities, and board chairs and CEOs of airlines, tourism companies, sporting codes, retailers, financial institutions and mining companies etc. (and their board members and senior managers responsible for risk management) have wilfully or negligently maintained their ignorance of the risks of, and associated with, a viral pandemic for 20 years. They are collectively guilty of gross incompetence. I am not referring here only to the incumbents but also their predecessors. It would not have taken much for them to prepare for the current situation.
First, listen to the virologists and public health experts and understand what the science indicated about the likelihood of a pandemic. At the very least, listen to Bill Gates.
Second, consider, model and game what would happen to normal daily activities and their own businesses when a pandemic struck and: all non-infected residents were confined to their homes for all except essential activities; people who had been in contact with a known case of the disease were required to self-isolate at home for 14 days; people with the disease were required to go into home quarantine, avoiding close contact with everyone; all unnecessary local travel was banned; inter-state travel was all-but completely banned; countries closed their borders to non-residents; most shops, schools and universities, offices, factories, cinemas and theatres, parks and beaches were closed; restaurants and cafes were restricted to providing take away refreshments; staff who had to work worked from home wherever feasible; people in public places were required to restrict groups to two people from the same household and keep at least two metres from all others; etc. etc.
The more consequential sequelae of these measures would not have been difficult to predict and, while some countries and organisations may have done their homework and prepared, it is not obvious that most government officials and senior executives have given it any consideration whatsoever. The writing was on the wall but they mostly failed to fulfil their risk management responsibilities. The incompetence of governments, board members and managers is now plain for all to see. Perhaps their focus was on short term profits and election cycles. Perhaps they hoped that any pandemic would happen on their successor’s watch. I would not have expected owners of small shops or tradies to do the necessary risk analysis and planning (although you might have expected their professional associations to have done it for them) but I have no sympathy whatsoever for the executives of airlines, universities, sporting codes, etc. who failed to attend to their well remunerated responsibilities.
One of the consequences of the domestic, national and global disruptions caused by coronavirus is the profusion of articles, including in Pearls & Irritations, discussing the implications of the pandemic and our responses to it for the post-COVID-19 world: for instance for national and international actions to tackle climate change, for the economy, for neoliberalism, for small government, for social relations, etc. On the one hand, we have people wanting to get back to ‘normal’, to pre-COVID arrangements, as soon as possible – a bit like after the first world war. On the other hand, we have people saying that we cannot go back to a pre-COVID life, that the world will never be the same again, that we need to develop new ways of working in the interpersonal, occupational, international and environmental spheres of life – a bit like after the second world war.
I don’t know what the world will be like in one or five years’ time. But I do know that the most important issue is for citizens to be active in shaping that world. This is not the time for ‘quiet Australians’. It is not the time to swallow the myths, sit back, trust Scotty (or Albo) and see what happens. The coronavirus pandemic creates an opportunity for citizens to shape the future, should they wish to grasp it. And if they do, the time to act is now. If we wait for the storm to pass, it will be too late. People with easy access to government – the one who have let us down over the last 20 years – are already trying to shape the post-COVID world to their advantage.
We can be certain that the vast majority of the current crop of corporate executives and their political puppets will still be around in the immediate post-COVID period. They are not going to surrender their wealth, privileges and power without a very determined fight. As others have said before, power is never given away, it has to be taken. Talk of governing for people not the economy, prosperity not growth, a Green New Deal, investing to accelerate the transition to environmental sustainability, intra- and inter-nationally equity, the death of neoliberalism, a return to ‘big government’, a well-resourced public service, universal basic incomes, wealthy individuals and corporations paying their fair share of taxes, etc, etc, are all just pie in the sky unless citizens demand them and elect politicians who will make the necessary changes. We need to stop electing politicians whom we then have to persuade and implore to accommodate our values and goals. I do not wish to suggest that governments pull all the strings but if we want them to pull the right strings we must elect politicians who share our values and goals in the first place. Democratic reforms will, of course, be needed to deliver this, but that’s for another day.
But active citizens and a grand plans for the post-COVID world are not enough. Society has to be able to make the vision become a reality. For that we need a new cohort of managers and politicians. People who not only share the vision but also have the ability to manage our public and private institutions to make it happen. Executives who want to work with an active civil society, not against it. It is obvious from the COVID experience that, despite their generous remuneration packages, most of the current crop of executives have neither the vision nor the ability. They were senior executives for the late 20th century, not the 21st.
They were executives for the exclusionary, discriminatory, exploitative, plundering, selfish, greedy, short-sighted values of neo-liberalism. We need executives skilled at the complex systems thinking that will be required to tackle the interlinked problems of pandemics, climate change, loss of biodiversity, world poverty, social and health inequalities, monopoly capitalism, widespread corruption, nationalism and fascism, etc. Citizens must push a broom through the upper echelons of government, public institutions and private corporations if we want a democratic, environmentally sustainable, equitable, peaceful world. Now is not the time for passivity.
Peter Sainsbury is a retired public health worker, lapsed sociologist and lifelong socialist.
Peter Sainsbury is a retired public health worker with a long interest in social policy, particularly social justice, and now focusing on climate change and environmental sustainability. He is extremely pessimistic about the world avoiding catastrophic global warming.
Comments
11 responses to “PETER SAINSBURY. Corona-myths: shifting the blame to preserve privilege. Part 2 of 2.”
I quote Jim Anthony: “That “…citizens must push a broom through the upper echelons … ” as Peter says, reminding us, left handedly that that’s what it took–and more in China in 1948 and Cuba in 1959. Absent Mao and the Long March and absent Fidel and Che in the Sierra Madre there would be no China or Cuba today.”
There’s our ‘rub’.
We lack a Mao or a Che.
Further (and more seriously) we lack a ‘manifesto’. Where is our latter-day ‘Program’?
And how would a prospective program attract a 60% majority electoral consensus?
Hand wringing.
I’ve lived with that for all my adult life – and I’m absolutely sick of it.
Sorry for the typos
The Virus is being heavily weaponized by the right wing against China, despite the fact it has been effective in flattening the curve. The conservatives, singing from Trump’s song sheet, refer to China as the “Chinese Communist Party” despite the fact there is notning communist about a country with so many billionaires. The same atitude now pertains to the ABC, where the reviously balanced INSIDERS program is now populalted by journalists from The Australian Newspaper.
Thank you from me too Peter. The point is a post-WW2 full employment scheme is urgently needed, which must include a green new deal, health, education and social housing. I do not favour basic income – not even a “decent” government can give away already-taxed state money [High Powered Money]. In any case most people prefer being socially useful, and do not want “sit-down money”.
What is urgent is a living wage, with job security, also in these new (or old) areas listed, crying for state investment. This government and its funders will fight all that.
The Communist Manifesto appeared in 1847 on, pretty much, the cusp of the last ditch attempt by the European aristocracy to preserve their ascendancy over burgeoning Liberalism. The intelligentsia then could consider two alternatives for future directions and, apart from a brief, perhaps premature, experiment, the money, which had a good head start, took the cake from the get go.
Though China represents a credible hybrid in my opinion, there is precious little to suggest that there is an appetite for that direction anywhere in the discourse. If anything China is a kind of one off with its Confucian like socio/political organisation.
I think that you are an excellent pamphleteer Peter ( I loved the 7 myths piece) but what is this sequel about other than fantasy? “We must…”, “We need..”, “Society has to…” and, finally, “..power is never given away, it has to be taken.” I am always excited by the call to arms, short of losing my existence in its service, and it’s good to see the flame still held high but really…..this is Australia after all.
Maybe we just don’t need to travel so much.
Peter Sainsbury’s piece is on target–very much so–even to someone like me living in Hawaii–a tourist dependent Mecca now in shreds. This is a place where monopoly capitalism has flourished, has come to stay, and may now be well on its way to being placed on the endangered species list. Those who have long had, will continue to try and hold on to what they have got. Ditto for America, our “mainland” the main line of our food chain and much more.
Michael Hart’s “This is the new normal, a seriously damaged world overtaken by seriously damaged minds” is chillingly poignant. Power is, indeed, not given away, handed over–it must be taken. How often have we heard that in the past? Thus is indeed the time to do what the Black Panthers said in the 60s: “Seize the Time.” We didn’t then. But will we now?
I have not heard anyone saying anything about Cuba lately. Ah yes, its a ‘communist’ regime. That China is too–a ‘communist’ regime–is beginning to be resurrected
That “…citizens must push a broom through the upper echelons … ” as Peter says, reminding us, left handedly that that’s what it took–and more in China in 1948 and Cuba in 1959. Absent Mao and the Long March and absent Fidel and Che in the Sierra Madre there would be no China or Cuba today. China is chock full of its own contradictions. Cuba, less so. So we’re back to What is to be Done?
As outlined in the first paragraph, all the usual suspects “are collectively guilty of gross incompetence”, because “it would not have taken much for them to prepare for the current situation.” But what about those who habitually criticise the usual suspects? Did any of them warn of potential epidemics?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
That’s a good question. I would say that awareness of the risk of a pandemic is very much a question for an elite, and a specialized elite at that. Huge kudos to Bill Gates for his moral choice to focus on this issue at a time when the next pandemic was a risk, not a fact. Very much a member of the elite. Just as the bulk of the population trusts that our government is addressing national security concerns as they should be – notwithstanding the regular embarrassing issues concerning defence contracts – I would say that we assume that such long term strategic issues are being attended to by the appropriate experts. If hindsight means that we discover that our assumption was wrong it is an entirely appropriate, vital activity.
Thanks so much Peter for this call to arms, following on from yesterday’s clearly argued debunking of the easy COVID myths.
No doubt the scum who like the world as it is are working hard on planning for the post-COVID world. So must we.
Indisputable. Proof? look no further than the desperate need to go ‘game on’ again and the indecent rush to save the ‘economy’, look no further than a quick comparison, anything it takes or whatever it takes to save the economy but nothing to save the living environment by killing off this economy, nothing to stop the destruction of the barrier reef and still no credible acknowledgment that without complete and fundamental realignment of how we live with the planet we live on, we will not live. The atmosphere continues to heat, the pollution continues unabated and the next pandemic is just around the corner. This is the new normal, a seriously damaged world overtaken by seriously damaged minds.