In December 1915 the British Minister of Munitions, David Lloyd George, described the war in Europe as a “convulsion of Nature … bringing unheard-of changes in the social and industrial fabric … a cyclone which is tearing up by the roots the ornamental plants of modern society … an earthquake which is upheaving the very rocks of European life. [O]ne of those seismic disturbances in which nations leap forward or fall backward generations in a single bound.” He would be proved almost entirely correct as the Great War went on to transform nearly every aspect of modern life, particularly our social and political institutions. Tipping points in 1945, 1989 and 2001 would usher in equally broad transitions, not least because of supposedly temporary ‘emergency’ measures which remained in place for many years afterwards.
In moments of crisis it is tempting to surrender rights and freedoms in exchange for promises of safety, unless we recognize that many of these rights and freedoms will never return. Twenty years after the September 11 attacks many questionable restrictions on air travel remain in place. So does the intrusive national security mindset of the US Patriot Act. In many cases these anti-democratic anomalies have been normalized or extended by subsequent administrations. Likewise the economic austerity imposed in the EU, and elsewhere, after the 2008 financial crisis has inflicted misery on hundreds of millions of people while doing almost nothing to change the behaviour of those who caused the crisis.
A different cautionary tale – one that bears more directly on the pandemic crisis – is the massive cull of farm animals which the Blair government undertook in 2001, to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease. Imperial College London provided scientific models which led the government to kill more than six million cattle, pigs and sheep, at an estimated cost in excess of £10 billion. Reputable scientists who reviewed these decisions subsequently concluded that the model’s assumptions were wrong and that millions of animals had been needlessly slaughtered.
Failure to question sweeping political decisions made during national crises often leaves us with few, if any, post facto remedies. Slaughtered animals cannot be resurrected nor impoverished people compensated for a lost decade. When crises are exploited for political ends there are always political interests ready to defend the new dispensation. Right now for instance, the Trump administration is dismantling environmental protections which the president’s corporate backers dislike. A Los Angeles Times editorial describes this deregulation as “dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.” Similarly, a recent letter sent to the White House’s ethics official by three Democratic senators notes that: “Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the American public should not have to worry that critical public health and economic decisions are being made in secret by public officials influenced by financial connections and personal ties.”
Political upheaval always favours strongmen, profiteers and opportunists. The many ongoing political and Covid-19-related crises are no exception. At moments like these the difference between the nations which “leap forward or fall backward generations in a single bound” often turns on their civil society’s ability to resist pseudo-patriotic coercion and to question the value of irreversible decisions that are wrongheaded, self-serving or corrupt.
