Progress has been made with the pandemic. Both progress by humans in attempts to defeat the virus, and by the virus in finding ways not to be defeated. Humans have generated several vaccines to combat the spread of the original virus, having been brought to the public with “unprecedented” speed. However, many mutations of the original strain have been identified as well, and those vaccines have been effective only partially in dealing with the mutations. The war rages on.
With all that has been going on, I have continued to be on lockdown. I’ve been cooped up at home for approximately 10 months now. That’s a long time to be told you need to stay at home. My wife and I have been suffering the effects of staying at home for so long, with depression and melancholy topping the list of side effects. It’s hard to know what to do in this situation. Should we continue to be the good citizens we have been, listening to the authority figures and remaining at home? Or should we revolt and return to how things were before the pandemic, going out and enjoying our lives again? This debate reminds me of the first post I made to this blog, and so I have read it again. Link here.
In that post, I presented my opinion regarding the pandemic. That what ought to be recognized was not a health crisis but a systemic crisis. That humans have been ignoring the significant problems and issues of society for a long time, and the pandemic has simply thrust those problems and issues into the spotlight. There were definitely sparks of promise out there over the past 10 months. Black Lives Matter protests. Hope for climate change issues with the clearing of waters in places like Venice, Italy. And even more recently, economic turmoil as hedge fund managers, having been manipulating the markets for years, have been highlighted by large numbers of Reddit users who have cooperated as amateur investors to beat those managers at their own game. It seems to me that it is clear as day what is going on; what has been going on for decades and even centuries. And others must have seen what I see too, as they have clearly taken action.
I hold onto hope that things will change. But there is a lot of evidence that things will not change as well. Particularly with regard to many countries’ approaches to the corona virus. Specifically, their banking on vaccines to solve the problem. It seems to me that many countries have simply spent their time focused on stop-gap or band-aid solutions for now—such as lockdowns, mask wearing, and social distancing—instead of working on long term systemic changes to attend to their populations—such as considering things like universal basic income, or even simply forcing the hyper wealthy to provide support to the world’s people in this time of great need. This last point is one I feel rather strongly about.
According to traditional capitalism, it is important to allow everyone their freedom to pursue their projects. Those who’s projects are good projects, and who are able to do a good job in pursuing those projects, will receive the benefits of their choices, amassing great wealth and power. Unfortunately, those who’s projects are not good projects, or who are unable to do a good job in pursuing good projects, will suffer. Technically, those who suffer are unfit for their world as such, and as per Darwinian Evolutionary Theory, will eventually die out, their genetics lost to time. This is the idea, at any rate. And during a pandemic, this formula still holds as true. Simply look at how much more wealth the hyper wealthy have amassed on the shoulders of the world’s people, who suffer and die as they are instructed to remain at home without the supports or resources to do so effectively.
I think upon what I learned about ancient Greek and Roman societies. Especially Roman. Where the name of the game was patron-client relations. It was fairly simple actually: those who were wealthy and powerful were the patrons, while those who were not as wealthy or powerful were the clients. The job of the clients was to do what the patrons wanted, often through labor. But the patrons also had a job too, to support their clients. No one was off the hook. It was the patrons who funded and organized the celebrations, set about the construction of buildings, and handled the politics and military. In other words, those who were wealthy spent their time not on the accumulation of more wealth (though increasing wealth did occur as a result of their actions), but instead spent their wealth on attracting followers and pleasing the people, their clients.
In ancient Greece, when it wasn’t yet called Greece, warlords and generals didn’t simply command obedient and loyal troops. They had to persuade those soldiers to follow them through the offering of benefits. As one without wealth, I might only be able to offer my service and labour, but I still could decide who to offer those things to. If a particular warlord wasn’t offering much in the way of benefits, my loyalty would likely wane as I pursued other avenues toward my own benefits.
It could be argued that these things still exist today. A large company with no loyal customers will not be a large company for long. However, as has been demonstrated time and again over the past couple decades at least, when a large company is large enough, they can receive a “bail out” when they may be in trouble. The “bail out” is assembled through the use of taxpayer money, which ultimately means that the large company has acquired the funds from the people whether the people liked it or not. In other words, the people, who’s service and labour should be up to them to decide where and how it is utilized, has been stripped of their freedom to choose. The large company has simply usurped the wealth from those who have no wealth. Sounds much like some tales of the Sheriff of Knottingham.
I have ranted on long enough for today. I hope my point is clear. Not much has changed since my first post. The pandemic is still a problem and is still revealing the cracks in the systems of our societies. We still have the opportunity to address those issues, however challenging such changes may be. It is unclear to me whether changes are actually coming or not, but I still have hope. And I’m not banking on a vaccine to bail me out.