Covid pandemic is unprecedented in human history. Any disaster including the Spanish Flue of 1918 which infected 500 million people and claimed about 20 million lives, did not affect so many countries. The Second World War saw the death of about 70 million people, but did not involve every country in the world. The covid-19, despite lower death rates, about half a million so far, disrupted social lives and national economies in countries and regions of the world.
Disruption of lives in multiple dimensions and of such huge magnitude has forced a serious rethinking on how we run our lives, states and societies. The debate between lives and livelihoods is raging in many countries. Before the pandemic, the focus of economies has been on enhancing GDP, as a measure of a countrys growth and power. In developing countries, ensuring ease of doing business was the priority of planners. That has now to be replaced by ease of living. Such shifts in approaches call for a change in roles of the institutions that govern as well as serve the people.
There are three kinds of institutions in any country-state or government, market or business, and civil society. The state produces citizens, the market creates consumers, and the civil society comprises communitarians. The roles of running people lives have been handled either by state or market, or jointly, whereas civil society has been a bystander. Under globalization, in the last three decades, the market has dominated peoples lives more than the state. Consequently, we have had more consumers than communitarians or conscientious citizens. The practices of individualism and consumerism overrode the values of compassion, solidarity and interdependence.In fact, the state has been in retreat since the heydays of Ronald Reagan in USA and Margaret Thatcher in UK. Reagans wisecrack in 1986, I am from the government and I am here to help would not generate any ridicule today. As covid-19 delivers shocks to systems of unparalleled magnitude, people would like their governments to turn up and rise to the challenge of this pandemic.
Reagans approach of diluting the state and according primacy to the market became an orthodoxy that coincided with globalization. The idea that gained currency worldwide was, the state should roll back and reposition itself, it should not try to control inequality and help the disadvantaged.
Admittedly, we have been on such a trajectory for over 30 years. Only a few social democratic states like those in Scandinavia tried to maintain some role of the state in minimizing inequality and in providing safety nets for the less fortunate and the marginalized. Or else, the individual consumer preceded the collective interest. But this pandemic tells us to go backs to the community-ness where people pulled together.The passion for high-growth led by the market has let us down massively. Nature, bio-diversity, ecological balances have been destroyed. In the pursuit of profit, the critical services like healthcare, sanitation and education have been neglected, which, in turn, has diminished the prospects of people earning sustained livelihoods.
The development economists like E.F. Schumacher, in his pioneering work, Buddhist Economics strongly advised looking after the people not the capital. This is where we need the state. Elected by the people and representing them the state should retrieve and re-assert it role.
India, like other developing countries, put emphasis on ease of doing business. Now it should shift to promoting ease of living. People would like first to live before they become richer through higher growth. The debate between lives and livelihoods is sterile. Both are complementary. People cannot survive without livelihoods, and likewise, unless they are healthy and skilled, they cannot eke out a living. Depending on doles which come in dribs and drabs or not come at all, is not an option.
At the same time, not all activities are best run by the market model. Many professional spheres like education, science, or medicine need not be run as commercial enterprises, suggested by economists like Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, or Milton Friedman. The former socialist French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin once famously said, We are not against the market-based economy, but market-based society.
Remember, the states with stronger healthcare systems managed the covid epidemic better-Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan etc. Also countries with special universal safety nets like those in Scandinavian region and Germany dealt better with poorer sections of their societies than the countries without such welfare schemes.Now, in the wake of this system- threatening pandemic, people demand from their states rights to lives and livelihoods, the natural and constitutional human rights. The states can provide those only with people-centered planning and strategies. Needs of human beings must precede the needs of business. Societal well-being must be the goal of economies, not the size of GDP.
There have been initiatives and experiences of putting people first. The Bhutanese king Jigme Singye Wangchuk coined the concept in 1979 of GNH in lieu of GDP. Gross National Happiness (GNH) should the measure of a countrys development, he suggested. Recall Helena Norberg Hodges experience in Ladakh based on dependence on local resources than global technology. Her books, Local is our Future: Steps to an Economic Happiness (2019), and Ancient Futures: Lessons from Ladakh, published in 1991, which speak for localization, not globalization, are models to look at. She forcefully argued that globalization has no future, climate chaos is intensifying, stress and anxiety disorders are of epidemic proportions. Why are we in thrall to the global market? Why do we cling to the wreckage? These are the questions we must address after the horrifying trail of panic and pain left the world over by covid-19.
A call for greater role of the state may give rise to statism of another kind, more a big brother state than a great society. The governments may want greater control of civil liberties and political rights and entrench themselves in power, like Victor Orban did in Hungary. Chinas response to criticism of mishandling covid has been suppression of dissent, and elimination of dissenters. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi too has ignored the Opposition in dealing with the pandemic. Therefore, in redefining the role of the state, we should talk about state capacity, not state power.
Furthermore, the Government as the representative body of the people having their mandate should play as team leader, not the leader. The society is greater than the government which comprises the majority of a certain party or an alliance. It is again a procedural majority, not an absolute one. At any time, we advocate a partnership between the government, the market and the civil society and the partnership is needed more in such emergencies as the present pandemic. The state has limited outreach and its resource is stretched in disaster situations, hence it must rope in the business for augmenting resources and the CSOs for reaching out to the unreached.
Finally, one would advocate a state based on pluralism-technological, economic, social and political. Switching back to local leading to isolationism or dirigisme is not the antidote. The state should play the role of a balancer or reconciler of multiple ways of planning and living. Such pluralism as well as synthesis have been our heritage, and let us preserve them.
Prof. D.K.Giri is the Secretary General of the Association for Democratic Socialism (ADS), New Delhi. ADS is a non-party political think tank doing research and advocacy on progressive politics.
Go here to read the rest:
Covid Redefines the State | DK Giri - Mainstream
- QazInnovations: Kazakhstan seeks to bring volume of innovative ... - inform.kz/en - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- World Earth Day: What is green finance, and why do we need it so much? - The Economic Times - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Netarts Bay cleanup scheduled for Earth Day with SOLVE and ... - Tillamook Headlight-Herald - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Shaping humanitarian and ethical governance in Pakistan - The Express Tribune - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen on the U.S. ... - Treasury - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Investing in nature: Building local economies through conservation - McKinsey - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Lalith's economic vision for Lanka: Export or perish - The Sunday Times Sri Lanka - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy to help A.P. govt. implement energy-efficiency projects - The Hindu - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and ... - The White House - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- A Restraint Approach to U.S.China Relations: Reversing the Slide ... - Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Carrollton Mayor and City Council Election Preview 2023: Meet your ... - Star Local Media - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Governor Kelly Signs Bipartisan Bill to Expand Teacher Workforce in ... - Kansas Governor - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Indigenous Peoples Must Have Full Representation, Participation in ... - United Nations - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- The EPA Region 6 Announces a Total of $23 Million to ... - U.S. EPA.gov - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Kansas governor strikes funding for anti-abortion pregnancy centers ... - Kansas Reflector - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Can You Fight for Climate Justice Without Being Antiwar? - Common Dreams - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Sustainable Tourism: A World leading to the road of Environment consciousness - Nomad Lawyer - NomadLawyer - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Atlanta's Cop City and the Struggle for Climate Justice - Resilience - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Jaishankars visit to Uganda, Mozambique went almost unnoticed but it indicated Indias bold gambit in Africa - Firstpost - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Natural resource - Wikipedia - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- Non-renewable resource - Wikipedia - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- Minister Wilkinson Launches Phase 2 of the Regional Energy and Resource Tables - Canada NewsWire - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Executive Secretary participates in Russian Energy Week to advocate for decarbonization in the UNECE region ahead of COP27 - UNECE - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Renault Group: The Future Is NEUTRAL: The circular economy is stepping into a new era! - Yahoo Finance - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Economy Expected to Contract Further in 2023, as the Fed Appears Resolved to Tame Inflation - PR Newswire - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Brazils Runoff Election Will Have Enormous Effects on the Global Climate Crisis - Truthout - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Health disparities and health inequalities: applying All Our Health - GOV.UK - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Opinion: Biopolitics is the invisible hand shaping mental health - The Connecticut Mirror - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Avaaz urges Georgieva and Trudeau to lasso-in commitments from IMF to attend December's vital UN Biodiversity Talks in Montreal - GlobeNewswire - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Kochi as a global city? Why not, asks the man behind Ahmedabads mega city story | Manorama English - Onmanorama - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Hennessy and Thurgood Marshall College Fund Announce partnership with Group Black and The Bishop Gallery to make "America's Most Influential... - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Pollution Prevention Week highlights ways to reduce, reuse and recycle waste - Michigan (.gov) - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- England headed for incineration overcapacity, warns UKWIN - Resource Magazine - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- 3 years of the Principles for Responsible Banking: our vision for change United Nations Environment Finance Initiative - UNEP Finance Initiative - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Isn't It Time To Challenge The Growth Paradigm? OpEd - Eurasia Review - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Coalition of Nearly 50 Organizations Launches 'Tear the Paper Ceiling' Campaign to Raise Awareness Around the 70+ Million Workers in the U.S. Skilled... - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Remote work can actually be more productive: More Hub readers respond to the work-from-home phenomenon - The Hub - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Mendocino Public Health on record-setting Sept. heat: We can't just treat this as a once-in-15-years occurrence - The Mendocino Voice - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Carbon Ridge Secures $6 Million Investment from Leading Climate Investors and Maritime Industry Leaders - Business Wire - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Regenerative Travel Is the Next Phase of Responsible Tourism - Outside Online - Outside - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- NNPC: Between rebranding and reforms, By Tijah Bolton-Akpan - Premium Times - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Embodying the spirit of Malaysia - The Edge Markets MY - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Nonprofit executive takes on state-appointed economic development role - MiBiz: West Michigan Business News - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Noble Mineral Exploration Signs Exploration Agreement with the Constance Lake First Nation - Junior Mining Network - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo: A Progressively Deepening Bilateral Partnership - The Geopolitics - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Oil money is flooding into Guyana. Who will benefit? - Reuters - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Remote-work revolution exposes need for better data, tracking tools to evaluate workforce, pay and economy - The Spokesman Review - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- We need rare earth elements for a greener future, but there's a catch - CBC.ca - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- BRNHA the steward of the living traditions of WNC: Opinion - Citizen Times - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- The Fiji Times Back in history: Future of forestry sector - Fiji Times - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Hochul announces grand opening of Capital Region BOCES Career and Technical Education Center - Troy Record - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Predicting the Future of Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Columbia University - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- JD.com Ranks 46th on 2022 Fortune Global 500 - Yahoo Finance - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- Minister Wilkinson Releases New Report Showing the Impacts of Climate Change and Necessity of Climate Adaptation in Ontario - Canada NewsWire - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- Do Armenians have a future as an independent nation? Part 4 - Armenian Weekly - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- Getting the diagnostics right 2 - BusinessWorld Online - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- GrammaTech and T.E.N. Announce Call for Nominations for Product Security Executive of the Year Awards - Business Wire - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- Energy Vault and Jupiter Power Announce Agreement for Battery Energy Storage Projects in Texas and California Totaling 220 MWh - Business Wire - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- The North East LEP: Thinking bigger and planning together for the future - Bdaily - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- It's not enough to buy American. You also need to sell American all around the world. - The Ripon Society - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Bid to designate 50k acres in UP as wilderness highlights tension over public lands - MLive.com - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- A 'Living Wall' At Texas A&M Could Be The Key To Smarter Cities - Texas A&M University Today - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Architects and designers must embrace the circular economy - Project Scotland - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Strategic Minerals increases Tin and Tantalum production in June and Q2 2022 at its Penouta Mine - Yahoo Finance - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Issues of the Environment: Improving recycling rates and quality of recycling materials in Washtenaw County - WEMU - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Joe Oliver: The Liberal Cabinet Needs an Intervention - The Epoch Times - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- SDG&E and Cajon Valley Union School District Flip the Switch on Region's First Vehicle-to-Grid Project Featuring Local Electric School Buses Capable... - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Reimagining business: The greatest debt of all time - Newsroom - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Moody's affirms A1 rating of Newfoundland and Labrador, changes outlook to stable - Moody's - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- New Mexico's oil and gas revenues are breaking records and complicating budgets - New Mexico Political Report - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- FACT SHEET: White House Announces over $40 Billion in American Rescue Plan Investments in Our Workforce With More Coming - The White House - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- The Class of 2022 Is Ready to Workon Their Terms - SHRM - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Faraday Copper Announces Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for the Copper Creek Project in Arizona; Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources Exceed... - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Inside the Triangle's latest job opening data: What boards are showing and who's hiring - WRAL TechWire - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Reserve Bank keeps blinkers on inflation, raising OCR to 2.5% - Stuff - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Abe's drive to bring back Japan | The Interpreter - The Interpreter - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- UCF Hospitality Researchers Expertise Is Tapped for Global Sustainable Tourism Report - UCF - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- Feminist Economics and the Fight for Human Rights - OHCHR - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- Biden Administration announces historic coastal and climate resilience funding - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- Why green ammonia will be the workhorse of EU's future hydrogen economy - EURACTIV - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]