"This is a free country", we have heard this American reference quite often in many Hollywood movies. As the world faces the deadly pandemic, the American citizens are out on the streets asking for discounts in government restrictions. This is quite an unprecedented situation we have here. Maybe an unparalleled situation since the collapse of the USSR. Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist predicted a new dawn on civilization with his best selling book, The End of History and The Last Man. To Fukuyama the end of USSR was the end of all the curses for the human race. Liberal democracy was hailed as the new political system. Globalisation was our ways of saving capitalism. Everything was to take us to our 'promised land of honey and milk'. But then, what happened?
Cut to America now, we can see a lot of Fukuyamists who think freedom means having the right to buy guns and being on their own. Take the example of the war in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan retreat is something that the people wanted. As a result under Donald Trump, America left the government in Afghanistan high and dry with fake promises. "America for Americans" - remember Trump used this to win the elections. The same strategy is also used here amidst the pandemic scare.
Yuval Noah Harari, author of the Sapiens in a recent interview with CNN said that, earlier we could see an America stepping up to lead the nations during a crisis (whether that's good or bad is a different thing), but now during a crisis we see no leadership from America or any nation for that matter. The reason is that America is becoming Politically Realist. Not only America, Political Realism is getting stronger across the world. I personally believe that national interests are what really stop us from overcoming the pandemic.
Post pandemic, what are we looking at? Unemployment? bankruptcy of capitalism? Ours is a market democracy. Many are of the opinion that a new economic order is at the helm. Slavoj Zizek, popular philosopher, considers this pandemic period to be the apt time to beat political realism and to advocate international cooperation. To this end, he used the phrase 'the return of communism' in an essay that he wrote. Poor zizek used the phrase in good faith but guess what, he was abused online.
So the answer to what's gonna be our market response is easier if we look at it from a political perspective. The result - A new political order? More political realists on power?
The concept of global world is under real threat now. Just think about this, how many of us believed in those whatsapp forwards which blamed China to be intentionally behind the spreading of the pandemic. We never tried to show the trust (which we never had) even in a crisis. It is upon this failed trust that populists and realists are betting on. Continuous Trump rants on WHO and China is an example of the upcoming order. The shocking thing is that a majority has found a liking to this. The schisms are getting deepened and widened at a time when we are expected to come together. Like I said this is a time which will be exploited by the populists and realists.
Adolf Hitler was a man who took Germany from its ruins and made it into a world power. What did he do? He was no magician but he made it mandatory that Germany is self sufficient. That did it. At present, if we look at Israel, Hungary, Brazil, India, Russia, Britain, US and China. Where do we see hope? In Hungary, Viktor Orban has made a decree that allows him to rule over the country for an indefinite period with no dissent whatsoever, pure totalitarian to be exact. This act was not properly questioned by the EU or the UN. These days its evident how powerless EU has become. The Brexit procedure is an example.
If we look at Israel, the country went through three straight elections to come to a conclusion. Now Netanyahu made a coalition with his rival to form the government. Where's ethics? Where's ideology? When national interests come up, i.e, when realism gets real, ideology gets defeated.
For America, it is really going through a leaderless phase now. It doesn't even matter who wins the next election. Biden vs Trump - two disoriented white males who stand for pretty much the same thing. The dropping out of Bernie Sanders is the recent example of failure of the best alternative that America had.
There has been many 'end of histories' in the history of mankind. Fukuyama thought the 90s was it but history again proves that history doesn't end, it moves on; fighting us, giving us challenges.
Many economists are pointing out that this pandemic period might bring the attention towards the strengthening of national markets which is the right thing to do inorder to sustain the system but the question is how far the populists gonna use the principle of Realism here. I believe the trade war between US and China was just a glimpse of what is awaiting us. Democracy is in a fix now. I don't wanna bring in a cosmic dialectics explanation offered by Karl Marx or other marxists here but a democracy is all about debate, deliberations and its not about a single conclusion. The post pandemic scenario will be based on how much Politics works on Economics. With populists like Trump, Orban, Bolsanaro in power, everything is likely to go wrong.
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