Life has changed a lot in the last few days, weeks or months, depending on where you live. Here in Italy, for example, the transition is measured in months. As efforts to contain the new coronavirus increase, the post-coronavirus world is likely to change even more. Yes, we are already tired of being at home all the time, we miss our friends and families, everything has been cancelled, the economy is in crisis and we feel anxious and scared about what lies ahead. We just want this to end, and we think it's just a matter of time. We are making plans for what we will do when things return to normal and banking on what happens.
But what if life no longer completely returns to the way it was before the coronavirus? What if this epidemic were a turning point, and what if the world will never be the same after it? To be desperately optimistic: what if the world could get out of this crisis meglio before? Madness? Who knows.
Lessons from History
For many of us, the most impactful geopolitical event that occurred in our lifetimes was September 11, 2001. The world changed that day and has never been the same again. A flu-like pandemic with a relatively low mortality rate may seem minor compared to the deliberate murder of thousands of innocent people. In reality this is not 2001. It is something much bigger. It looks much more like 1941.
1941 was the full height of World War II. Nobody knew what the outcome of the war would be, everyone was terrified, the allies (among which Italy was obviously not yet among them) were losing the war. But even in the midst of those darkest times people began to imagine what the future world would look like.
It was 1941 when President Roosevelt kept his famous speech on the four freedoms. It was 1941 when the Atlantic charter, which set out a vision for the post-war international order. The situation we find ourselves in now is, of course, different; it's not a war. It is more the occasion for a convergence of science, biology and geopolitics. And while the coronavirus crisis is still ongoing, its future implications will be gigantic.
The old world is dying. The new one is slow to appear. And in this chiaroscuro monsters are born.
Antonio Gramsci
The post-World War II world order was already in severe crisis before the coronavirus. Postwar legislators and planners imagined a world that shared sovereignty while tending towards less nationalism. Today we are in a period of dramatic re-nationalization of the world. There are more or less authoritarian, more or less monocratic leaders from Brazil to the USA, from Turkey to China, from Russia to the United Arab Emirates, from Iran to Hungary and many others.
Institutions intended to foster global cooperation (such as the World Bank, IMF, UN, WHO) have been virtually swallowed up. The consequence is that we don't have effective structures to deal with global crises, not just the coronavirus. Think about climate change, protecting the oceans, preparing for a future of automation and AI - no country can independently address or solve these enormous challenges.
All is not lost, however.
When the Spanish flu pandemic hit in 1918 there were only 2 billion people on Earth and of those 2 billion only 30% had any schooling. The "educated brains" who had to deal with the problem were 600 million in total.
Today there is a global population of 7,5 billion and a literacy rate by 86%. This means that over 6,5 billion people can be part of the effort to fix what is broken (obviously in various capacities, they are not all doctors or virologists!) Another fundamental element: we are more connected to each other than we have ever been. It took thousands of years for knowledge transfer: now they can travel in real time around the world on the Internet. The pandemic moves at the speed of globalization, but also the response. The weapons we are using in this battle are larger than anything our ancestors could have imagined.
Now it's time for monsters
While we experience, at home and on our balconies, this incredible energy from below, we are also observing abysmal failures in the behavior of many vertical institutions. Have you been afraid these last days and weeks? Yes, anyone who knows me knows it. The economy is entering a deep crisis. Italy can lose 100 billion euros a month with this lockdown. People may lose their jobs, get sick and not know how long it will last.
There will be an economic slowdown or recession, there will be problems with our health systems. And these are just the predictable things. If we want to push ourselves to speculate (and believe me, no one can say which are absurd and which are not), if the poorest areas of the world are hit hard by the virus, we could see fragile or even multilateral states collapse. A profound crisis from coronavirus in Africa, for one, it could represent the collapse of the European Union as we know it. Our (fragile) democracies will be tested. For this, however it goes, the world after the coronavirus will be different.
The new world struggles to be born
We don't know exactly what that world will look like after the coronavirus, but we can imagine it. Basically, we take trends that were already in motion and hit “fast forward.” Virtualization of events, activities and interactions. Automation of processes and services. Political and economic decentralization.
But now it's 1941. Now is the time we need to think about what we would like the new world to look like and start designing and building it. It depends on us. With hindsight, it is easy to imagine a better response to the coronavirus than the one we gave. On the other hand, the warnings had been there for years. What if, three months ago, a global surveillance system had been established and at the first signs of the epidemic, an international emergency team led by the WHO had immediately traveled to Wuhan?
We must strengthen a global system capable of involving people in an inclusive way while also respecting the differences between countries. Now there is a complete lack of a positive long-term vision. The UN Sustainable Development Goals, for example, globally call for gender equality, no poverty, no hunger, decent work, climate action and justice. We do not have strong enough institutions to implement these principles: there is too much gap between the nature of these problems and the structure of our politics.
The world after coronavirus: building the new normal
Just as our “old normal” was new to our grandparents (mine was 1941 in 29), the post-coronavirus world that seems so shocking to us will be simply normal to our children and grandchildren. But there are some differences between the mid-1900s and today.
We have more educated people, stronger connections, faster information sharing, and more technological tools and scientific knowledge than ever before in history. The number of people who can be part of this conversation is unprecedented. We couldn't have done this in the industrial age or even the nuclear age. There has never been this kind of motivation combined with this ability anywhere in the world.
In 1941, the overall planning process was top-down: a small group of powerful, intelligent people decided how things would be, and took steps to make their vision a reality. But this time it will have to be different; To succeed, the post-coronavirus world needs a new global plan. A plan that has significant bottom-up momentum.
