I am running out of things to say about the current
situation, but late Capitalism and Globalisation shares part of the blame for
both its spread and the failure of Go vernments and Economies to cope.
One of the prime culprits is the just in time paradigm of
supplying both components for industry and food to our supermarkets.
Information technology and rapid transport of goods around the world has
facilitated this, and it seemed like a good economy at the time as space was
not required in superfluous warehouses along with the staff to maintain them,
through times of shortage. Well it ain’t so any more, and the extra demand of
people stocking up for lengthy lockdowns, and the health service increasing the
demand for PPE and specialist equipment has shown this up most readily.
The other consequence of this has been exacerbated by Governments failure to plan for such emergencies and to maintain essential supplies of medical equipment. Back during the cold war when nuclear annihilation, chemical and bacteriological warfare seemed real possibilities there were such stock piles in the anticipation of massive injuries and disease pandemics. With the false peace benefit of the Gorbachev era, much of this was sold off on the surplus markets, and what remained expired a natural death. Nobody thought it was necessary anymore. No excuses though because the prevalence of national emergencies due to climate change, ie extreme weather events like floods and hurricanes, and the knowledge that sooner or later there would be a pandemic (and now indeed there is) have proved this to be as false an economy as Capitalism resort to the lazy Just in time policy I have described in the paragraph above.
The other consequence of this has been exacerbated by Governments failure to plan for such emergencies and to maintain essential supplies of medical equipment. Back during the cold war when nuclear annihilation, chemical and bacteriological warfare seemed real possibilities there were such stock piles in the anticipation of massive injuries and disease pandemics. With the false peace benefit of the Gorbachev era, much of this was sold off on the surplus markets, and what remained expired a natural death. Nobody thought it was necessary anymore. No excuses though because the prevalence of national emergencies due to climate change, ie extreme weather events like floods and hurricanes, and the knowledge that sooner or later there would be a pandemic (and now indeed there is) have proved this to be as false an economy as Capitalism resort to the lazy Just in time policy I have described in the paragraph above.
Learn we must or perish we shall. I mean it is not as if the
warnings were not engrained in our Western/Middle Eastern cultural history,
with the dreams of Joseph and the plagues of Egypt which Jews and Christians
both remember at this time, with the hope that the Angel of Death passes over.
Well if you want the Angel of Death to pass over, you have to make the right
precautions and preparations.
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