Capitalism and Covid-19
I feel bad for my friend Ray. He loves basketball – and March Madness is the highlight of his year. How many of us in the US are waiting for the first member of our circle to fall ill, seriously ill? How will we rise tomorrow to serve that circle of people who matter:family members, close friends and your dentist? What is the social contract that holds us together?
Covid-19 has brought the specter of serious illness and all of its consequences to our consciousness. Disease and infection are not words that we like to use. If we have to talk about things like hemorrhagic fever, we prefer to place those conversations in an African context. We want to believe that we are somehow better off than “those people”; we want to believe that our healthcare system is the best in the world. A few months ago, the novel coronavirus was in a far-away place called Wuhan, today it is all around us. Those “big beautiful walls” aren’t going to save us; the astronomical health care spending in the US isn’t going to save us. Some of us are going to get sick and some of us might very well die. How we decide to act during the next few months and years that follow this disruption will determine how many of us live and die.
This disruption to our grand plans reveals a lot of truths that we need to take a hard look at. Some of these truths are personal, deeply ingrained in our identities and they will define how we (individually and collectively) show up in the recovery from this health crisis. The first truth, and the one that we want to talk about today is reciprocity: how we are connected to each other at a time when physical connection is taboo. Reciprocity defines a relationship. For the atheists amongst us – we might want to talk about Newton’s Third Law: “ for every action, there is an equal reaction”. For the humanists in our circle – we might want to talk about Ubuntu: “I exist because you exist”.
For the capitalist in all of us – we are “reciprocals”. We operate as buyers and sellers. You make stuff and you buy stuff – I do that too. Sometimes you buy my stuff and sometimes I buy your stuff. We interact with each other in the marketplace trying to improve our lives by trading things we have for things we want. Sometimes the exchange goes well – and sometimes not so well. Today many of us are being asked to “shelter in place” and to self-quarantine in order to stop the virus from accelerating its infectious pathway through our transactional relationships.
During this time of pause – we have a chance to reflect on the quality of our relationships. We can ask ourselves how they have helped us to become who we are and how the capitalist system has influenced our relationships with other people and with ourselves. We can also ask what is missing, and if we are really lucky - how we might organize our lives and the relationships we have (and could have) to improve our lives beyond the accumulation of stuff in the years ahead.
Capitalism is grounded in a complex belief structure: growth is good, time is money, and taken together - compounding money through investment or savings - creates an exponential equation that perpetuates the growth mind-set. If growth stopped, if money stopped compounding – would time stop? In times like these, we are invited to think about time and our relationship with it. Unfortunately, time is not reciprocal – nor is it infinite. We are granted a relatively short time to build our lives, to accomplish our dreams and to establish our legacies. Perhaps this human existence draws us to understand Ubuntu and our multiple inter-dependencies.
Systems will struggle to reassert themselves after a disruption. The wounded landscape of Australia (post the wildfires this year) is healing. Nature abounds in reciprocity: death nurtures life, decay feeds tomorrow and we are all deeply interconnected and interdependent. Covid- 19 is a natural event that has brought all of that interdependence into sharp relief. I exist because you exist – my future is a reflection of your future. I’ve never been to Wuhan or Tehran. If I had to guess, those places are like a lot of places I have been - Boston and Milan. I also believe that my future looks a lot like the future of the people that live in Wuhan and Tehran.
Capitalism is a human built system that doesn’t do as good a job as nature at maintaining equilibrium. In fact, capitalism is a very destabilizing system and without an infinite growth trajectory – it will become even more unstable. In 2008/2009 we witnessed the mobilization of trillions of dollars to meet the challenge of a credit crisis. Today, central banks and fiscal agents are pushing trillions of dollars into the capitalist system to meet the challenge of a health care crisis, and to buy some time. Monetary and fiscal “ease” is directed into the breach again to try and re-establish an equilibrium condition. Today, we are invited to ask ourselves an important question: do we want to establish an equilibrium condition that restores the status quo from yesterday or something that is better?
What truth are you discovering about yourself and your relationship with the people in your circle? How are you seeing yourself in that reciprocal relationship? If you want to explore the ideas and discoveries from this reflection in terms of your relationship with money – the TILT team would like to talk with you. As individuals and institutions, we have a unique opportunity to explore the interconnections and interdependencies that define our lives. Capitalism, money and market volatility are real – we built them. Sometimes we need to lift ourselves above the noise that we created, and to forge a deeper knowledge and understanding of what is happening – this might be that time for you.
I hope to see Ray later this week, probably on a Zoom call. We’ll smile and talk about next year and the promise of March Madness in 2021.