Fighting the coronavirus pandemic is not like fighting a war; but the social consequences are something else. There are interesting parallels with World War I. Whether they will develop is unclear, but we won’t notice unless we look.
In popular European memory, the first World War generally takes second place to the second (with exceptions in places such as Flanders). But the political and social impact of the first war was larger.
The madness of that war eroded the codes of social deference. The end of the war brought almost every multinational empire to an end: the Austro-Hapsburg empire and the Ottoman, while the Russian was only preserved by the murder of the ruling dynasty and its replacement by a communist empire.
The British empire survived and so did its monarchy, but only thanks to a significant compromise. In 1917, the royal family dropped its Germanic name (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) for Windsor. George V was compelled to respond to the nationalism of his subjects.
The first four Georges spoke German. They were, after all, of the House of Hanover, and nobody had seen any difficult problem with that. WWI, however, changed the fundamental moral doctrine of nations: rulers were expected to share the ‘national culture’ (even if it remained a cloudy notion) of their subjects.
Nor was it only a matter of culture. Before the beginning of the war, globalised trade was as far advanced, by some measures, as it is today. By the end of the war, however, globalisation was on the retreat. National boundaries were being drawn around economies. It took the rest of the 20th century for globalised trade to stretch back to the old levels.
There are three parallels here to mull over. One is with the break-up of empires. The EU is not an empire. But there is no doubt that it is under pressure because of the combination of Brexit (which has an immediate-term negative impact on the EU as much as the UK), resurgence of right-wing populism and missteps in dealing with this pandemic.
Pressure does not mean collapse. But it does mean leaders will need to be sure-footed.
In our day, we have multinational economic empires. Here, the existential question is much more serious for some, especially those involved in the travel industry. Will the cruise liner industry survive? Which budget airlines – with huge grounded fleets and tenuous connections to any single nation-state – will survive the pandemic?
The future is not written. But understanding the present helps us see which way the world is trending
Next, there is the redrawing of trade boundaries. The pandemic has exposed the strategic weakness of concentrations in supply chains; for example, the fact that so many medical supplies need to come from China.
That pattern of outsourcing followed market logic. But if we decide that pandemics are likely to be a regular security threat, the logic of trade and production may change. Governments might come to think of medical supplies the way they do about military production. Secure supply, not economic efficiency, is the governing consideration.
This week saw Germany’s most popular tabloid, Bild, issue a €150 billion ‘bill’ to China for damages caused to the national economy by the pandemic. There are similar highly publicised stunts in the US. And they’re getting a sympathetic hearing around Euro-America.
This doesn’t mean that Donald Trump or Angela Merkel will follow up with a real bill. Trump is in the middle of a trade negotiation with China, and he knows better than to infuriate a country he’s actively negotiating with.
The real significance of these stunts is that they politicise foreign relations. Popular pressure becomes a factor in foreign-policymaking.
In this case, it’s a nationalist sentiment that is not just hostile to China, but open to reduction of trade (‘decoupling’), even if it comes at some cost. The ‘right kind’ of relations with China has become a talking point of Joe Biden, Trump’s likely Democratic challenger.
Finally, there is the impact of patriotic sentiment within Europe itself. It’s less the boost that right-wing nationalists might get. The pandemic has, after all, boosted the credentials of experts – the pet hate of populists.
Across the European political spectrum, however, from the centre towards both extremes, there has been a double-sided reaction.
On the one hand, there has been the general agreement that huge deficits matter less than bailing out industry with taxpayers’ money.
On the other hand, this commitment of public funds has been based on a civic morality: “We will bail you out because you are one of us.” That comes with the expectation that the recipient of public funds will be reciprocating by behaving like “one of us”.
It is highly implausible that there will be any moral tolerance for companies that take money out of public coffers while continuing to avoid paying into them.
Writing in this newspaper, Lawrence Zammit pointed out the implications for the financial services industry. Demand for services enabling massive tax avoidance is likely to go down in the post-COVID-19 environment. The implications for Malta’s financial services could be radical.
For we are fast thinking that the only threat to financial services could come from the EU passing a law that restricts what can be legally supplied. Now, it can be a moral-political pressure on demand for the service. We can veto a law but not public morality.
The future is not written. But understanding the present helps us see which way the world is trending. If a new world is being born around us, the worst thing we can do is insist we do not have to reinvent ourselves with it.