How do we solve problems created by this Pandemic?
By looking at cracks in icebergs, and seeing the parts that fell off.
This article mainly revolves around solving the problems created as a result of the Covid19 pandemic. But before I begin, I ask of you to take some time to subscribe to this newsletter if you haven’t at all. I also try my best to make all of my content as free as possible. If you like my work and want to support me, I would appreciate it if you became a patron. If you prefer to support me in “crypto”, you may do so here.
Thanks, and I hope you enjoy the read.
As we find social scientists rush to tell their insights about the coronavirus, it has fascinated me that I have seen little of the causes of the things that have left our worlds— and I say worlds because we all view this entire experience differently— in tatters.
Little had anyone asked themselves if we had TOO much connectivity; that perhaps our global interdependence may have made it such that or individual societies are far more fragile.
Little had anyone thought about the risk catastrophes of catastrophes that weren’t caused by people.
Little had anyone… ok, people actually did warn us about pandemics, but did we listen? Obviously not.
Theories trying to explain the causes of socio-economic collapse as a result of this pandemic have been so terrible at explaining the situation primarily because they focus on effects and not causes; the cracks, that had been there due to fragile systems.
When we are talking or dealing with moving past this pandemic, it is these things we should be talking about. These obvious deficiencies that had so obviously contributed to this issue.
The question then remains… what are those cracks?
Connectivity is not interdepence.
Have you ever lit a thread on fire and watched it burn until it reaches a breakage? What happens as it reaches that point? Most of the time, it just stops burning. Many experts had used something similar—namely burning matches— to describe the necessity of social distancing. But I believe this to also be an accurate model in explaining why we have social systems that easily collapse.
Interdependence is seen as a useful tool.
Because it allows us to gain resources that we usually do not have.
Because we can use 1 as an excuse to create pacts that prevent us from killing each other.
Neither is bad, and as Hayek perfectly explained in The Road to Serfdom, and as the success of Wikipedia has shown us, no centralized institution has enough knowledge to deal with the complexity of an ever-changing world.
But that wouldn’t be a case for interdependence though would it? That seems more like a case for Decentralization.
Decentralization allows us to gain from many smaller atomic structures but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are dependent on them. It merely means that we can benefit from being in a particular network, many times whose participation is voluntary. A great example of decentralization was Taiwan’s approach to dealing with the virus.
What we have done globally, however, is created a system of interdependence so absurd it’s somewhat crazy how no one thought we’d be here.
OH WAIT. Someone did.
Enter Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He lifts weights and is as much of a polymath as they come. Some may call him the Chad scholar… oh wait, only I do.
But if you are familiar with the term Black Swan, as in an occurrence so out of the ordinary that it disrupts many of our preconceived notions of the world, then there’s no doubt you are familiar with this man.
He’s… known to be brash… maybe an understatement considering he may have blocked half of the entirety of Twitter’s— who knows?
But this brashness comes from a man who has experienced a lot and is frankly tired of recurring idiocy. Taleb has been adamantly trying to get to the root of catastrophic occurrences. According to him, our interdependence has left little to no room for risk mitigation. Our lives have essentially become the risk safety nets of others. People on the higher end of the economic curve, basically use the poor and average citizens as a way to reduce any harm caused by the consequences of their decisions.
Taleb as such has advocated localism, a system that relies on atomic units such as municipalities, counties, or minor states in federalized nations to tackle the ever-shifting problems we face more head-on. This requires a redirected focus on individual communities rather than a more globalized outlook that leaves no one accountable. In short, he’s trying to make kings realize how human they are, and keep them more in touch with the people they serve, rather than let’s say… dining with other kings and queens, making backroom dealings that barely benefit the average individual.
I absolutely agree with Taleb’s outlook and vision. In a world where a lot of what we deem necessary finds itself in the producing hands of an authoritarian nation, it makes one wonder why we leave ourselves so vulnerable.
Hyperconnectivity works best for smaller more developing nations— the Ghanas, Rwandas, Malaysias— of the world who albeit extremely capable leaders and natural resources need or want more foreign investment. Even there, a case for self-sufficiency could be argued to prevent the exploitation of these nations that this interdependence has normalized
For large empires like the US and the EU, this hyperconnectivity leads to very few gains to its working people, and hence the populist movement’s rise in much of the developed world.
This call for self-sufficiency isn’t a call for discrimination or a world that refuses to accept the beauty and sovereignty of other nations. It isn’t a call for a world of isolation. If anything, it is a call to acknowledge the beauty, sovereignty, and capability of other nations, with respect to various citizens. Because for far too long, we have lived in a world where this interdependence has become far less so as a way to ensure the well-being of the citizens of nations(whether developing or developed), and more so a parasitic means of robbing developing nations of much-needed wealth.
We need to think hard about creating backstops, backups, and failsafes, that kick in when connected systems fail. Or even better, we must rethink how we structure society as a whole and the best way to do so, is by seeing the other cracks this pandemic exposes.
The Question of State Capacity and the Role of the State.
I’m kinda tired of talking about Big government and Small government. What were initially differences that came to be from genuine concern over philosophical debates about the purpose of the role of government, have simply turned into screaming matches by 16-year-old twitter users, who learned most of what they did about political theory, from YouTubers who themselves know nothing about the subject(Whew that paragraph was a mouthful).
The most comprehensive modern call for reduced or limited participation of the role of government in the lives of citizens mostly lies in Hayek’s observation that planned economies tended to veer into cases of full authoritarianism easily because planned economies tend to have little to no Rule of Law.
This is to say that the governing principles that affect those in the leadership of planned states and the citizens are different. Those who lead have near uncompromised power because utopian planning needs as little obstacles as possible to achieve its means. For this, Hayek stated the Market to be the best means—not necessarily of solving the problems people face— but of identifying wants, demands, and signals that the population shows. But even he did not advocate as absent a government as many “Free-Market” societies(looking at you America) advocate. In the words of Hayek:
What we are seeing is that you need a capable state. More importantly, however, is the need for a state that has the trust of its citizens. This trust is a property that is earned from pure openness about crises. It brings a sense of accountability on the shoulders of leaders who gladly accept this burden. I find it fascinating how well the female leaders of the world have done in this regard. I know not of what inherent quality makes them such competent leaders, I just know that I am in awe.
That said you need State Capacity. A competent state doesn’t have to be an omnipotent state if its citizens act to ensure it isn’t the case in. And yet, we have seen many uses of the rhetoric of “Freedom” to coerce average citizens who are genuinely scared of losing their livelihood. In many ways in the Western World, this “Freedom” which is at its core mostly just psychopathic
I am still shocked by the late responses of the US and the UK in this regard. It had shown to me two things.
That “Freedom” had become a dog whistle for cronyism.
And that 1) had led to a case where many have lost their belief in functioning governance so much so that, they would rather tear it to shreds that participate in reshaping its nature.
This is a tragedy of many parts. But it is a joy as well to see innovation and leadership on the part of other nations. As I had shown before, Taiwan had basically relied on the competence of its technically gifted population to respond to the crisis. New Zealand followed Taiwan’s steps but coupled it with a scale and time-based approach. What many of us had come to believe as the most incapable part of a society, is proving itself to be otherwise if we choose it to be.
The call and defense of freedom mostly relied on the belief, that the greatest threat to freedom is the force and coercion of other people. And yet, what would we do if we were to hear of a giant asteroid hurtling towards earth, or of an earthquake, or… a pandemic.
I will always believe that freedom is that which does not leave you or those around you dead. To this end, freedom can be ensured, and it is not always the individual who can secure their freedoms.
As a believer in decentralized systems, the greatest realization I had was that even decentralized systems need multiple centralized nodes. They need areas of relative strength that can basically carry the rest of the system in times where most can’t but still paradoxically remain accountable to the rest of the system.
State Capacity is such a thing. It isn’t a general principle one can set in stone as time changes and circumstances do as well. It is, however, a property that can be gained and improved.
Conclusion.
I sincerely believe that the issues and questions associated with the two topics mentioned above are keys to highlighting were a lot of developed nations have failed. I believe that in accessing what these two issues mean we may be able to craft not static ideological principles as before, but dynamic systems whose power mainly depends on its ability to tackle dynamic problems.
We are facing grave times; times of unprecedented economic despair. If we are to move past this, and do so stronger than ever, we need to tackle the root causes of why we suffered these losses in the first place. This, first and foremost means, thinking about why they exist.
Homework.
I realized early on that I barely click links on articles even if they help clarify them. So I basically asked myself how I could solve that problem. As such, I’ll be experimenting with what I call the “Homework” section. these will basically be things I believe to be essential readings necessary to fully grasp my thoughts on an article. Some of these are affiliate links and a portion of these purchases would go quite a way into supporting my work.
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Book by Taleb; describes fragile systems)
The Road To Serfdom(Book by Hayek; describes authoritarianism)
Thanks and hope you enjoyed this essay!