Teetering On The Edge: What Covid-19 Has Exposed About The State Of Our Society And Economy

As I sit here and ponder what my life will be like over the coming weeks without work, part of me has wondered why so many of us have accepted the hand we’ve been dealt.

• Jamie Mah @grahammah

“A Black Swan is an event, positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I’m often left in awe of the labour strikes so many fought for during the gilded age at the turn of the 20th century, or the civil, feminist and queer fights of the 60s, 70s and 80s. It brought together the above-mentioned under a unifying decree that what they were being given wasn’t enough. Wasn’t right. That change needed to happen.

We haven’t solved all of those issues entirely; they do still exist, however, the ethos of our society has often been grounded by these poignant moments when many in the community saw a problem that needed fixing. As author Nassim Nicholas Taleb discussed in his New York Times Bestselling book, ‘The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable’, “life is the cumulative effect of a handful of significant shocks.” I believe I can confidently confirm that we are now, today, fully immersed in what might become one of the biggest black swan events of our time. If this Covid-19 pandemic has shown us anything these past few weeks, it’s that we are completely ill prepared for this and are at grave risk of not learning from it unless drastic change is forged.

In his book, Taleb’s narrative centres around our struggle to plan for what we don’t know and that black swan events tend to always have a more meaningful impact on our society than the thing that which we do know. Past examples of this would be 9/11 or the rise of Hitler and its subsequent war. We’re horrible at predicting these events and have been left to react and scramble when they do. Our slow mobilization to curtailing the spread of Covid-19 is a perfect example of this. Instead of jumping head first with a prepared global response effort, we delayed action and have now thrown our world into flux as the threat of death has become more of a reality. But this, however, is only part of what I’d like to address here.

**Here’s a link to an excellent measure now being enacted by the Danish government. Great read and something we should definitely do here in Canada. Our bailout so far is less than 3% of our GDP. It should be closer to 20% if we want to stave off a catastrophe.

As I detailed at the top, accepting our fate versus fighting for change and what’s right is one of our most noble qualities as humans. Yet, as I sit here, I struggle with the notion that just going back to the way things were before Covid-19 is the wrong thing to do. This pandemic has exposed our vulnerabilities, as so many of us are not equipped financially to withstand this for a long stretch of time. A week for some is too long.

During his Presidential campaign, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has advocated for a complete overhaul of the American economic system. Painted as a radical socialist, his views come across as extreme and scary, when in fact they are quite sensible once political agendas and polarization are pushed aside. The vast majority of us, if polled, would agree that medicine for all is a good thing. I live in Canada, so I can concur that it is.

I have a feeling that we’d also conclude that one person holding wealth above a billion dollars is wrong and unjust. That also paying a person a living wage is not only good for them but also for our economy.

We know these things, yet we do little to fix them. Why do we stand by and just let inequality grow? Are we that lazy or is Netflix that good?

**This is an excellent conversation from Kara Swisher’s Recode Decode podcast. She brings on former US Presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, to discuss his proposal for universal basic income and how instating it now and moving forward is the correct course governments should take.

It hurts me to no end how bad this break from work will affect so many; myself included. I have a bit of savings, but I am not rich by no means. Two to three months off work will hurt me a lot. Luckily, I only have to worry about myself. Those with children I’m nervous for. How will they cope? Will government help really get to them?

These questions aside, are we in need of a full scale revolution the likes our society hasn’t seen in decades? The Wet’suwet’en protests of this past winter were a poignant moment for this country, in that those who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Wet’suwet’en Nation, saw a chance to hopefully enact real change. Their stance provoked mixed reactions amongst a large number in Canada. Many saw it as an annoyance of their day-to-day lives, which, ironically, it was meant to be. Others supported their cause. Eventually it forced the government to jump in and deal with the crisis. Discussions happened, and mutual understandings needed to be resolved. Plenty of work still needs to be done. We have ignored Aboriginal rights for far too long. Poverty at the extremes has existed for them on so many fronts and we’ve turned a blind eye to it all too often. It’s easy to ignore what we can’t see.

But therein lies my point. Covid-19, the virus that has brought us all down at this moment has, ironically, moved to the forefront a big problem we have ignored for far too long. We’re broke. We’re massively in debt. We’re barely getting by and it’s getting harder and harder for us to climb the economic ladder. Jeff Bezos’ wealth should not exist and we shouldn’t just accept it.

Last year, Jerry Useem wrote a fantastic piece in The Atlantic titled, “The Stock-Buyback Swindle: American corporations are spending trillions of dollars to repurchase their own stock. The practice is enriching CEOs — at the expense of everyone else.” In it he discusses the now widely common practice (companies buying their own stocks back so as to shore up their share price) as it pertains to the overall health of our economy. Instead of spending profits funding R&D or employee salaries, a lot of public companies are enriching themselves, their CEO’s, and their shareholders. This brand of capitalism strikes at the heart of where we are now as a society. Columns such as these come out and we read them and get mad, but we do little. Barack Obama dealt with this issue back in 2009 as he began his Presidency, when he had to accept that many high up CEO’s and managers of banking firms, who were being bailed out by taxpayers, would end up receiving their bonuses, even though they were the ones who helped cause the recession in the first place.

This amount of greed isn’t going nowhere. It exists today, and we need to address it.

One of the founding reasons we have exhibited little fight regarding the state of our world and its economy is that even though we have vast amounts of income inequality in this world, our lives, how we live them now, are exponentially superior to how humans have lived at any time in history. Upheavals often come when duress occurs. But for most of us, our lives are not that bad. We may be in debt to our eyes, but we have cars, tv’s, smartphones, the internet, access to media and restaurants. Our way of life is cushier than ever before. Instead of fighting for a cure for the struggles and inequalities we see daily, they have given us medicine to cope, hoping we’ll stay idle and let things continue as they have been. The opioid epidemic is a good example of this. Alcoholism another. We medicate to deal.

Yet, every once in a while, a Black Swan event comes along and changes our lives. Covid-19 is the great test of our time. It has united us like no other. We all lost our jobs together. We’re panicking and dealing with this as a collective. Lives, sadly, will be lost. Our way of life is in jeopardy. Money will run out. Rent might not be paid. Bills too. The reality of our current way of life will come to fruition. Like any problem that’s swept under the rug and never dealt with, the issues we’ve ignored for decades will be front and center when this pandemic finally passes, most likely way before. But when it does, will we stand together as the Wet’suwet’en did this past fall or those in Selma did in 1965 and fight for a bigger and better shake?

This might be our one chance to affect great change. We can’t let it pass us by.

I hope we won’t. Our lives and the future of our children’s might depend on it.

**Full disclosure: I’ve never protested before. I’ve often stood on the sidelines when moments of crisis and solidarity have presented themselves. I’m in awe of those who have fought for injustice and who will continue to do so. I tend to get shy in those moments. I will look to be more proactive as I gain more perspective of the world around me. I will look to fight when I see an opportunity. But as a writer, I also understand that debate can be a great starting point for change. I’m comfortable in this arena. Please take that into consideration before you go all woke and want to chastise. This column is meant to provoke thought, debate, and ideas. There’s plenty I don’t know. I understand this. But I do realize we can be better. We deserve more. May we get there one day together.