Communities in the Pandemic
Alberto Mingardi
– December 1, 2020

AIER >> Daily Economy >> Government >> Economic Education >> Crisis


Our Covid-19 predicament has been compared to many historical episodes: some consider it on the same order as a war, others a crisis of the magnitude of the Great Depression. I think these comparisons are fitting in the sense that the lasting legacy of Covid-19 has been the dominant narrative that will emerge, once the pandemic is (happily) over. So far the dominant narrative has been that an order-less, too economically integrated, and therefore reckless world has been rescued from the wreckage by almighty governments.

This might have worked, rhetorically, earlier on. Now, in so many places, the government is failing in mitigating the pandemic. Bureaucracies act on the presumption of knowing things, and there are still many things that scientists, let alone government officials, do not understand about this virus. Plus, with unprecedented success, the private sector is coming to the rescue with new vaccines.

Of course, the success of a narrative is not necessarily based on it fitting the facts better. It could just be that it is a nicer story, that it sounds better to people that it is better crafted by politicians and their spin doctors.

But here’s an interesting article. On the Guardian, John Harris remarks that in England communities have been self-organizing in the last few months:

…droves of volunteers who were gripped by community spirit coming together to help deliver food and medicines to their vulnerable neighbours, check on the welfare of people experiencing poverty and loneliness, and much more besides. From a diverse range of places all over the country, the same essential message came through: the state was either absent or unreliable, so people were having to do things for themselves.

Rather predictably, Harris thinks that if “the key story of the Covid crisis has been that of town and parish councils enabling people to participate in community self-help”, now “the next chapter is about-- excerpt, rest at link above --

I must be a dinosaur living among other dinosaurs. We already take care of things and do what needs to be done.