Richard Calland: A lifetime chance for a future we want - The Mail & Guardian

Has there ever been a more fatuous debate than the “health versus wealth” one that animates public political discourse about Covid-19 lockdowns in many places, including South Africa?

If the situation were not so grave, one could luxuriate in the exquisiteness of the governance challenge: for which bits of the economy should restrictions be lifted to breathe livelihood-sustaining life back into society, without unreasonably or unduly risking the health of people and the public healthcare system?

Clearly, therefore, Covid-19 is a public health and social crisis with a profound economic dimension; and, concurrently, an economic crisis with a deep social and public healthcare and welfare dimension. It is not a binary clash between “health” and “wealth”, which is a false dichotomy that is as sterile as it is superficial and misconceived.

First and foremost, respect for human life and dignity. Unemployment, harmful and degrading as it is, may not be permanent. Death certainly is.This part of a progressive strategy must also including doing everything possible to enable the public health system to cope with the pressure it will be put under — including ensuring that healthcare workers have the necessary kit to defend themselves from infection.

Many progressive thinkers and economists, as well as development finance advisers and asset managers, have been agitating about how to “organise” a “just energy transition” that can overcome a resistant political economy. Covid-19 provides a scorched-earth chance to propel that transition irrevocably forwards.

First, globalisation and the nation-state: Will Covid-19 be the death of modern-era economic globalisation or will it provoke serious reflection and reform of how nations trade and organise their common institutions of multilateral governance? Will it serve to further diminish the authority of multilateral bodies and thereby further the spread of authoritarian nationalism?

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