To deal with the pandemic fallout, remember 1945
Celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day — victory in Europe, the defeat of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945 — were muted by the coronavirus pandemic; many events were canceled, and those that did take place were curtailed by the need for safe distancing. In a moving broadcast to the British people, Queen Elizabeth compared their resolve to defeat Hitler with their resolve to combat COVID 19. This disease is not causing the physical devastation that the Second World War did, with Europe in ruins. This time it is our economies that are being devastated, and we still do not know what the lasting consequences will be.
The greatest fear among many leaders in 1945 was that the world would slide into another great depression, as it had after the First World War. Governments responded wisely and generously. The G.I. Bill in 1944 provided a raft of financial benefits to US soldiers returning from the war, including payment of tuition fees that gave them a college education — often the first in their family, thus driving social mobility.
Nor did the US look only inwards, as many accuse it of doing today. Between 1948 and 1952, the Marshall Plan pumped more than $12 billion (nearly $130 billion in today’s money) into western Europe to rebuild its economies. The UK used its share of those funds to lay the foundations of a comprehensive welfare state, including the National Health Service, which guarantees health care to all, free at the point of delivery.
And with the determination that populist nationalism should never again be permitted to provoke global conflict, as it had already done twice in half a century, came the creation of the multilateral global architecture that we know today — the UN and its subsidiary organizations, along with the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the IMF and eventually the EU. As Queen Elizabeth put it, the greatest tribute to those who defeated Hitler is that countries who were sworn enemies are now friends, working together for the peace, health and prosperity of us all.
So what lessons from then are applicable now, as COVID-19 holds the world in its grip? Individual states in the developed world will be tempted to look inward to address the fallout from the pandemic. Attempts to refinance multilateral development agencies or top up bilateral aid will meet domestic resistance, in an environment of staggering government deficits.
The egalitarian trend after 1945 has been reversed in the past few decades, and the wealth gap has become a chasm. COVID-19 has laid these inequalities bare. AfricanAmerican and Latino communities in the US have suffered disproportionately, reflecting their lower incomes and inferior living conditions. In the world’s richest country, long queues in front of foodbanks are an abomination.
This pandemic is a global crisis (there’s a clue in the name), and will require global solutions. Alas, the multilateral infrastructure is under attack from populist leaders and populist governments. Do the UN, the WHO, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, etc. need reforming? For sure they do, but that does not mean we should abandon them. If ever there were a time for nations to work together, it is now. What the world needs is leadership, collaboration and magnanimity, not “every country for itself and the devil take the hindmost.”
The pandemic has exposed inequalities within countries, and among them. When it is over we will have to ask ourselves, who do we want to be? What can the weak expect from their own countries, and what can weak countries expect from the family of nations? Strong, sustainable societies have strong middle classes and fewer inequalities. And internationally, countries in affluent “neighborhoods” are less likely to turn on each other.
The privileged, whether individuals or nations, have an obligation to look out for the less fortunate, or the initiative may be taken out of their hands. When we emerge from the crisis, we can learn a lot from the magnanimity of the Marshall Plan and the spirit behind the postwar multilateral frameworks.
In her broadcast, Queen Elizabeth appealed to the wartime values of “never give up, never despair.” During the pandemic lockdown, she said, “our streets are not empty, but filled with the love and care we have for each other.” Now is the time to show it.