I have just posted this thread on Twitter:
The government is denying it, but the scientists are seemingly quite sure about the fact that we are facing another wave of Covid 19 infection. Reopening, as planned for Monday, with a final stage in June, could see hospitalisations at a rate greater than that in January.
Given that the government has get every stage of Covid management wrong my bet is that the scientists are closer to the truth on this issue than the government is. The likelihood that, yet again, Johnson will dither and cost the lives of tens of thousands is very high.
Like almost everyone I was looking forward to summer. With a second jab due soon, I wanted to be optimistic. But I am not. As with the Spanish flu, the likelihood that two waves is not the end of this story is now very high.
The question I want to ask though, is what does that mean? Not in medical terms, but in terms of politics, the economy, and the way we live. To date the assumption is that we will ‘return to normal', but what is normal now? To put it another way, has everything changed?
My suspicion has always been that Covid will have a much greater impact on society than most thought when it first hit last year. From the outset I suggested that some major reprioritisation was going to be required if we we were to survive as a society.
As example, I suggested that landlords and banks had to take the hit from Covid in economic terms. If, as I correctly predicted, the economic consequence was a massive threat to people's livelihoods and chance to work, then that threat had to be the priority.
So, of course I wanted furlough. And we got it. But I wanted something more than that. I also wanted a change in the economic priorities of our society, which furlough was not. It has been an effective sticking plaster for some, but not a policy change.
A policy change in reaction to the Covid world we live in would reorientate our society. It's indisputable that we have lived in a society that has for centuries seen a fight between the owners of capital and those who provide their labour to make a living.
This is not a Marxist observation. It's a statement of fact which Marx also observed. Those who can make financial returns to create an income have always competed with those who must work to share the spoils of what is produced by effort to meet our needs and wants.
The way capital extracts that reward from production varies. Rents, interest, dividends, excess pay, royalties, corruption, tax abuse and more are used to extract a return not matched by effort. But what cannot be denied is that this happens.
What is also undeniable are three things. The first is that society has tolerated this, partly because the owners of these rights have had significant influence over successive governments.
The second is that a successful narrative has been woven around the ownership of capital that suggests those fortunate enough to be possessed of it are ‘worth it'. Just watch ‘The Pursuit of Love' on the BBC tonight for current evidence of that.
Third, control of the media by capital has led to those who work for a livelihood being, broadly speaking, satisfied by this arrangement. An income, the suggestion that with effort they could get more, and the promotion of well-being through consumption has achieved this.
And so the status quo has been maintained. The post-war consensus challenged it, but it remained intact, as the last forty years have shown. There is reason for that. What has kept it going has been the silent partner in the tripartite economic arrangement we live in.
That silent partner has been nature. Those who have studied economics will know that it refers to the ‘free gifts of nature'. The world is assumed by conventional economics - which is what we still have - to impose no cost and to require no return.
The result has been obvious to see. The rewards to economic activity have gone to labour, but in increasing part to capital, with not a care about nature. And the cost has been enormous. The environmental degradation of our planet is obvious.
What Covid has done, but which has yet to be recognised, is remind us that nature is there, and we do have to pay due regard to it. It has taken a virus to remind us of that truth. But the reality is that it has always been the case that we should have taken due care of nature.
There is no ‘free gift from nature'. Our planet has always been both finite, and yet capable of replenishing itself in vital ways. But that intimate relationship required management. That management was the economic return it demanded that we have not paid.
Covid just reminds us of that. But it also very powerfully says what has been cannot continue. We do not just have to learn how to live within the constraints that this virus imposes. We have to live within the constraints of our planet as a whole now, or we will perish.
Covid has taught most of us that we do not wish to perish. There are those who appear indifferent in that issue. Their concerns appear extraordinarily aligned with those of capital, but for most the lesson of Covid has been just how significant we are in each other's lives.
I believe that this is the tipping point in Covid. I am not for a moment suggesting that we have forgotten how to consume. Nor am I saying that we must stop consuming. There are so many needs and some wants that should be met. But there is a change in priorities, nonetheless.
My hope is that after Covid we might realise that we have to take nature and planet, and their constraints, seriously. It is that, or we suffer harm, as we have done. The strain of Covid is real. But let's not pretend there is no cost to that, because there is.
The cost of transitioning to recognising the demands of our planet has to be paid. And, if there is one thing economics does correctly suggest it is that there is a finite pot from which returns can be paid.
Let's be blunt about this. The human priority is survival. It is that our basic needs are met. Nothing matters more. And let's also be clear, the resources to meet all human need for all alive, and likely to be for a while, can be met if care is exercised.
So, the economic challenge we face is not that need cannot be met, although ensuring equitable distribution to achieve that remains a challenge we have not always succeeded at. The challenge is, instead, the satisfaction of wants.
Wants are, by definition, those things we would like but do not need. The challenge here has changed. Labour and capital have fought over this issue, most especially in so-called developed countries since 1945. Capital has been winning for at least the last 40.
But, now the ability to meet want is constrained by nature. Some forms of want - including excess travel, existing heating and some forms of consumption most especially - are incompatible with climate change and our own survival. That's a fact. Nature requires a return now.
So, the question for economics, and us all, post-Covid is from which share does this return to nature come? Is it labour that is to make the sacrifice? Or is it capital? It's my suggestion that Covid brings as up sharp against this fundamental question, and we haven't answered it.
Who is to pay? Well, I suggest it can't be labour, at least not as things stand. That's because data shows that the vast majority of people (that is, those who do not have capital of their own in the form of savings) don't have the means to make this payment.
Most people in the UK and around the world pretty much live month-to-month. That's not least because they are already paying massive amounts of return to capital as rent, interest, excess profits as a result if business overcharging, or whatever. There is no room to pay more.
So, pragmatically, capital has to pay this return. And we have already seen this in the Covid era. Rents, for example, were put in hold in some cases. Interest holidays were imposed, and so on. To simply let the economy continue to function capital had to take a hit.
Well, those who did not report to other forms of extraction from the common purse did, more accurately, take a hit. Those who abused society through fraud, cronyism and illicit activity did not of course. And those too are all forms of return to capital.
The owners of capital will now want to change this situation. Expect them to try to recover their losses. This is when the pain begins. Another lockdown will expose that pain. But so too will climate change.
My work on sustainable cost accounting suggests many companies are what I call ‘carbon insolvent'. They cannot make the transition to net zero carbon. Their owner's capital is going to be lost. They just don't want to admit it as yet.
And this is the existential crisis Covid really poses. It asks whether we are now really willing to reappraise our priorities. The question is, can we shift to meet needs now cruelly exposed as being unmet, and pay the return the planet requires?
If we are to do so that comes at a price to financial capital. This was always an artifice. It is simply a legal construct of property rights demanding returns be paid to some who can ring fence property from others.
There is nothing natural about financial capital. Nor does it require massive acumen to acquire it. The outrage about the National Trust exposing how influential slavery was in its accumulation is all about denial that violence played a major part in its accumulation.
And that denial will continue. Capital has, and continues to build many of the narratives in our society. Can we change them is then the real question to ask? After a century or more of labour trying to do this is nature the mechanism to do so?
Is it possible, in other words, that people and planet are sufficient concern to challenge the entrenched forces built around property rights that now threaten our survival?
This is the real question about Covid vaccine patents.
This is the real question about whether landlords should now have the right to evict those who could not pay their rents during this crisis.
This is the question about cronyism too.
And it is the question on climate change.
Covid is no longer a deeply dangerous irritation that we can hope might pass. It now poses an existential question. That question is about whether we want to live, and will pay the price to do so.
That price has to be borne by capital. Nothing else can pay it, not least since much of its accumulation has arisen from violence against our planet as well as against people.
The challenge in this is enormous. But we can't duck it. That would put us on the side of the ditherers who have failed time and again to deliver Covid lockdowns, always hoping something will come along to save them.
This time that something won't come along. We have to decide to change. This time it's real. This time we have to reform. And this time is now.
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You really should follow @fact_covid and @sailorooscout on Twitter, they have provided excellent updates along with others about the success of vaccines.
I follow the leading epidemiologists on sage and independent sage
No one really knows the success of existing vaccines on the Indian variant right now
Peak stupid.
You must be totally delusional.
Now explain why
Ohh yes, go on Mark, or whatever your name is, set out a calm, reasoned critique of Richard’s blog. Several points you could make perhaps:
1) Prove that Richard’s statement about climate change posing a threat to the very existence of human civilisation is incorrect. Given that the consensus of all climate experts is that this is so, how are you going to do that?
2) Challenge his assertion that Johnson’s government has handled the pandemic very badly, and continues to do so. I assume you’re an expert in vaccination strategies, the maths of pandemics, and so on?
3) Challenge his point about how capital has nearly all the power in our society, both political and economic, and therefore will have to do nearly all the paying required to sort out both the Covid crisis, and the much bigger climate one.
Very thought provoking. Thank you. Following the Gandhi concept of “Sufficient is enough” I have turned increasingly inwards since Covid began, which though good for the planet and my fellow locals (I support the local food bank with the money saved) is not good for my mental health. I long to sit on some river bank in Europe with a long lunch.
I just sat on a river bank in Europe
OK, a couple of miles from home
And yes, I am lucky
But to be candid being much further away would not have been much better
Yellowhammer and whitethroat, plus sedge warbler were my birds of the morning
Oh, and a turnstone which is pretty rare for Cambridgeheshire
At the moment I think quite the contrary..the Government are using the Indian variant so scare people into getting the vaccine, particularly those in ethnic communities where the take up rate is relatively low..
Some evidence from India an observational study of 3,235 healthcare workers based at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in Delhi. The group, all of whom had been vaccinated with the Covishield vaccine — as the AstraZeneca vaccine is branded in India — were subsequently tested for Covid 19. Of the 3,235, 85 were found to have the infection, 65 of whom had been fully-vaccinated and 20 of whom had had one jab. The study, reported in the Hindustan Times, observed that the hospitalisation rate was just 0.06 per cent — which means that just two of the workers can have suffered a serious enough illness as to require hospital treatment. There were no ICU admissions or deaths in the group
https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/health/hospitalisation-chances-after-covid-vaccination-are-0-06-apollo-hospital-study-101621089347535.html
With respect, that’s utterly irresponsible of you
I guess you self identify as a sociopath?
Maybe even psychopath?
So you disregard the evidence and throw out insults because it doesn’t fit with your narrative!! Says it all..
Anyway I suggest read this https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/health/hospitalisation-chances-after-covid-vaccination-are-0-06-apollo-hospital-study-101621089347535.html
I have
And I have read the epidemiological rejection of the claims
https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1393642951046270984
And you prove your troll status as well
Interesting to note that you also have at least three identities here
I think my comment justified
A close family friend (a Dr and expert on health inequalities) works with Prof Martin MacKee at London School of Tropical Medicine. McKee is one of those quoted and cited in the media and is being clear that there is a significant risk and that he personally will continue to follow the precautions we have had over the months – stay outdoors, masks, distancing. Our friend has been in touch with us to encourage us to be very careful. The current outbreak and Indian variant is serious, vaccine or no vaccines. As ever, the government is being over optimistic.
An interesting article here explaining why it is aerosol transmission that really matters, and why the medical and other advisors have been slow to pick that up. Reinforces the case for staying outdoors and masks. Begs the question as to why this is still not fully reflected in the advice we are getting.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/
I agree with your friend
I am not changing my behaviour for this
Timely Richard – especially on the immediate and latest failure to do whats needed to try to keep short term control
https://www.independentsage.org/six-point-plan-for-dealing-with-the-b-1-617-2-variant/
Yet again – BBC Radio4 this morning doesnt ask a truly objective academic, what is actually needed, but merely finds whatever ‘expert’ will just say the government is ‘doing the right thing’. This time its Prof Solomon of Liverpool Universtiy compromisingly dependent on govt goodwill and grants , and who seemed to support the original disastrous non policy/herd immunity garbage in March 2020.
The BBC’s distortional feeding of the ‘narrative’ which you describe as supporting the present setup is part of the mountain which has to be climbed. This is not a democracy – it is lacking a reliable recognised source of objective truth.
As usual, as you say
What a pity that the comments seem restricted to the covid/vaccine debate, since the bulk of your article is far more important and profound. You have addressed the major question of our era. A fundamental shift is demanded globally to reorientate economic priorities and that necessitates a confrontation with the priorities of the present elite. This is an unavoidable political question that must be posed with relentless clarity to every government and party in the democratic world. And it must be posed, not in the language of previous eras, but in the rational, scientific terms that you have used here.
As you say, the built-in assumption has always been perpetual economic growth without much thought about natural constraints. The knee-jerk solution to any problem is always growth, in incomes, in wealth, in investment, in output, in productivity. At the moment, we have just one planet we can live on, and its natural resources are finite (although some such as solar and wind and wave power are hardly tapped yet). But getting down to basic needs, the usable agricultural land, potable water, etc, are finite, and not necessarily near where the people want to live.
There is also an assumption that the resource of labour is always going to expand. Well, perhaps not, not even in China or the US. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-57112631 India and most other places will follow. Perhaps the greatest population expansion in the next century will be in Africa, but eventually the world population will probably top out at around 12 billion and start to fall, and there will be a shortage of young healthy people, and an excess of older people.
How do we arrange our society so most can people expect to live a healthy, happy life?
Precisely the sort of question I am asking
I totally agree with the approach here.
Capital has grown rich because it has received more wealth from privatisations, mergers etc., whilst we have seen a corresponding drop in society’s investment such as infrastructure, R&D in the name of ‘efficiency’ without questioning who actually got the ‘efficiency’ gains (well – it was obvious – it’s capital).
Now I’m afraid its time to collect the bill. It’s payback time. And this realisation is the easiest bit.
It would be crazy for someone to deny that another wave is likely. The question is whether it causes unacceptable health problems. There is a predictable wave in common cold infections every autumn — as a society we accept infections whose consequences are usually mild, even though in a fair number of frail elderly people (like my late mother) a cold will be the triggering event for a bronchopneumonia which might be fatal. At the moment it would be foolhardy to assume the next wave of Covid will be that mild, but it is very likely its health impact will be less than April 2020 or January 2021. As long as infection numbers remain uncontrolled in some parts of the world, further variants will arise.
Of course “no one really knows” how well the current vaccinations will work on this Indian variant — the people you quote are professional scientists who would require a high level of evidence, of the sort which takes months to collect, before saying they are certain. However the consensus seems to be that they are likely to work, at least against severe illness. That was the prediction from the original sequence data (which was felt to be less concerning than the South African variant) and is supported by the recent data testing serum from vaccinated individuals. To be sure we will need data on whether vaccinated people exposed to actual infection are protected: the item quoted above from the Hindustani Times would seem to imply that but without knowing more about the study behind it I am sceptical about accepting the top level claim.
I am worried about your correspondent Andrew Broadbent’s knocking of the BBC, seemingly having become an unwittingly follower of Rupert Murdoch and other right wing newspaper proprietors who have a vested interest in silencing the BBC’s voice. It shouldn’t be a criticism that Radio 4 got an opinion from an academic who depends on government goodwill and grants: any real expert will be someone involved in virology research which has few funding sources other than government, and if working on Covid will be dependent on samples and data from the NHS, Public Health England, the Office for National Statistics and so on. I would be more worried about someone who didn’t have some sort of relationship, “armchair experts” are two a penny and can be found to support every view including extremist ones.
But back to your main article, Covid has caused and is still causing massive disruption to the status quo financial model. Even if there is substantial recovery, there will be some lasting damage. Your most important point is that future disruptive events are going to be more and more likely with climate change and the human population’s increasing demands on natural resources — it needs you and other economists prepared to think more widely to come up with proposals for how to increase society’s resilience.
Yes, it does seem strange, even inexplicable, that our rulers and worldwide, have the information and evidence before them of catastrophic climate events – fires, floods species loss………. yet quite prepared to do nothing or just minimal token actions to make it seem they are concerned. It seems that unless mass action is taken by the ordinary population nothing is going to change. As for Covid, ostriches and sand come to mind!
[…] Cross-posted from Tax Research UK […]
Thanks for this Mr Murphy. One tiny erratum. In your pithy summary of capitalism you write:
The rewards to economic activity have gone to labour, but in increasing part to capital, with not a care about nature.
It is clear from the tenor of your post (and by the facts of the matter) that you have inadvertently missed the word “not” between “have” and “gone”.
You are right
Having listened to Radio 5 Live this morning , there is clearly no narrative remotely along those lines you have outlined above . every conversation is about ” lets get back to normal ” . Capitalism today has no answers to those issues you mention , of course it largely created them to feed the 1% . My step – daughter is doing Economics at College , i dread to think what she is being taught ? Marx said the Human Race had a choice , Socialism or Barbarism i fear the latter is more probable ……..
“Peak stupid….. [and]…… totally delusional” is probably one of the most poignant comments on this thread; indicative, as it is, of denial of the impact of this global pandemic, and the belief it is going to go away and allow us to carry on as we were. As if ‘the way we were’ offered a possible sustainable future. I don’t think you even mention Brexit in your piece: that would have created seismic changes without the complications of pandemic.
“Build back better” and “Levelling up” are fairly hollow slogans, but indicate that even this, less than brilliant, government has noticed something may have changed and we may have to do things differently.
Neither the health nor economic consequences of the last twelve months or so can be accurately predicted and it would be comforting to think that government (and indeed opposition) politicians were having conversations around the subject matter of this thought-piece. There would, naturally, be considerable areas for disagreement about some of your suggestions for personal and Party reasons, but they need to discussed and ultimately and before very long actions will need to be taken.
‘Mark’ seems to be still considering the explanation of his position. 🙂
Without wanting to appear flippant the answer to the existential question is that none of us will survive.
I was watching the Ayn Rand episode from Adam Curtis last night on i player and the trouble is that sensible management is characterised as looting and theft by the owners of capital.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_%28TV_series%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged#Property_rights_and_individualism
Extreme selfishness and consumption is being promoted as a lifestyle choice of preference for the masses on the media ; breeding mental illness and aggravating economic and social decline.
To catch and spread covid or not has been the existential question for many and a substantial minority have decided that unthinking selfishness is the best route and have snubbed controls, demonstrated in favour of lifting lock downs, and been indifferent to the risks to others in vulnerable occupations or health categories.
The Prime minister and his government seem to follow these ideas and they look set to dominate media policy making , financial regulation , education policy and trade policy for the foreseeable future.
Well, in the long run, we are all dead, as they saying goes, but for most people it does matter what happens in the meantime, and what we leave behind.
Most of us care about our impact on others such as our friends and relatives, and the prospects for our children and nephews and nieces and grandchildren and remoter issue, and many extend that to a concern for people we have never met, and the environment we all live in.
The problems of over-population and global pollution may well solve themselves by the year 2200…..
The birthrate is dropping over most of the worlds “developed” nations.
This is not the good thing that people may think, in fact it is as bad as over-population.
It looks as though the pension age may well have to increase to 80 by 2100!
A consideration of an ageing population along with falling birthrate may point to an extinction-level problem in the not-so-distant future.
“The study projects:
The number of under-fives will fall from 681 million in 2017 to 401 million in 2100.
The number of over 80-year-olds will soar from 141 million in 2017 to 866 million in 2100.
Prof Murray adds: “It will create enormous social change. It makes me worried because I have an eight-year-old daughter and I wonder what the world will be like.”
Who pays tax in a massively aged world? Who pays for healthcare for the elderly? Who looks after the elderly? Will people still be able to retire from work”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521
I watch the WHO Press Conferences regularly
Yesterday as they have done countless times before, they warned of the dangers of opening up too early. I wonder which country they are talking about. Could it possibly be the UK?
I am sure it is one of them
A good report from Tony Blair Institute highlighted that even pre the Indian variant, the UK was opening up too quickly. Based on a careful analysis of infection rates (still too high) and level of vaccine (still not high enough to prevent further outbreaks). They were suggesting that it needed another month or so to be safe. The Indian variant ought to mean extra caution but that would be totally out of character for Johnson and co.
(Whatever you think of Blair, the Institute has some good people producing mostly non partisan reports)
Do we want to survive?
I don’t know what you are worried about – 50% of our solutions to climate change will come from technologies that do not yet exist…
OK, facetious as usual – but the solutions do already exist and that has to be the message that gets through.
Keep plugging away, Richard.
I agree Climate change is an existential challenge but, whilst Covid is serious, a new virus isn’t anything that humanity hasn’t previously faced.
At least in this country, there are some grounds for optimism on Covid. There were just three deaths reported yesterday (a seven day average of 8) whereas in Germany there were 237 deaths ( a seven day average of 208)
So our vaccine program does look like it is succeeding so far. The infrastructure does look to be in place to give everyone a booster with a tweaked vaccine should this be necessary to protect the most vulnerable against any new variant.
We should be turning our attention to what we can do help the rest of the world now. We should be reversing the cuts in our foreign aid budget for a start, and restoring the spending with an emphasis on medical assistance.