The pieces and go on after this
One of the nicest things you hear about living through war is the way people will be generous and also because everyone is in it together more united in spirit.
That’s been evident in many ways this week, even if we’ve also had people yelling at one another, and not only on Facebook.
There were people giving away food before everything closed. There have been people online giving away their music, their coaching, their time.
It’s been said by advocates for a universal basic income that you might see more of that sort of thing if you moved to that system. One more good reason to try it, then.
How much wreckage can we expect? If you’re looking for some reassuring words, sort of, a Wharton professor had some: ‘‘The markets are over-reacting. They are acting as if we are going to encounter the worst-case scenario.’’
What he meant was not that things aren’t grim as all get-out, just that they’re not grim without end.
There will be a point at which everyone can come out and pick up and move on again, like after World War II, except with most of us OK and no buildings or the world around us destroyed.
Apart from the climate damage of course. Maybe – if we’re smart, and if we’re lucky, and if America hasn’t completely flown apart – we’ll set to and undertake a large and inspired remaking of things.
At the least, we can expect to see some change imposed on us. Tourism must become a much thinner proposition for a good long time. Many airlines will surely fail and, as competition reduces, the price of airfares will surely rise.
That adds up to many fewer people arriving here when we swing the gates back open.
The late Paul Callaghan said we were making a mistake embracing tourism. It might be great at producing jobs, but not well-paid ones. His prescription was to go after that unicorn we’ve been chasing for so long: high-value, high-skill enterprises; businesses that can flourish in an online world.
You can’t readily magic this stuff up, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t our best bet.
Meanwhile, have we ever seen more comprehensive proof of the need for a proper robust social welfare system and a large role for government? And has it ever been more clear that working together is a better idea than sharpelbowed selfish individualism?
The future might be uncertain, but there will be one. Whatever we have in our hands at the end of this will be just the start.
Has it ever been more clear that working together is a better idea than sharpelbowed selfish individualism?