“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
― Milton Friedman
Not to undersell the real health and society issue that is covid-19, but if we were to compare it to a game of chess, in our minds how many moves ahead are we? After all the better chess players are not just thinking of their next move but the moves further ahead also, theirs and their opponents.
Could we imagine only 2 months ago that we would be told to stay home for Easter and that this direction was enforceable. Two months ago, we would think of these actions being only of a totalitarian government, yet a crisis has produced community tolerance for such restrictions to our personal freedom that most of us accept what the government is requiring us to do. How many moves though is the government ahead of this, have they already figured out how the massive debt being incurred is to be paid for? What about big businesses, not hampered by popularity contests (elections and opinion polls) how many moves ahead are they? After all their lobbyists have being leaving ideas around with politicians for years, ideas that promote economic growth and by pure coincidence their own. And as individuals are we also moving the pieces in this covid-19 chess game towards the ideas we’ve left lying around or merely pawns, who’s rights can be sacrificed to protect the King at all costs?
Who is Milton Friedman, why bother with what he said? A Nobel prize winning economist, Friedman’s belief on minimal government intervention, extolling the virtues of a free market economic system, still has many influential disciples and followers today, 14 years after his death. His ideas are very much still lying around actively promoted by his disciples, and now again are in a very fertile environment to be adopted. For example, one of Friedman’s ideas was the abolition of medical licences. Would we be more accepting of the relaxation of immigrant doctors being required to pass Australian licence standards to practice now then 2 months ago? What about relaxing environmental safeguards to enhance greater economic activity to quickly generate job opportunities? Covid-19 is going to produce real change. In some cases, it will accelerate what was already happening, for example online shopping and working from home. However, in other cases we may also be expected to endure greater restrictions on our personal freedoms (Big Brother is watching and listening – the covid19 tracing app!), to better protect us!
At the moment I believe there is more sympathy for the value of community. Community not just being the one we live in, but the circumstance we now all live with. There is sympathy for local businesses, the unemployed, aged, local entertainers, youth missing out on opportunities to perform in school musicals/eisteddfod’s, the loss of local events, etc. But is this sympathy going to turn into support when the circumstance is gone? Or will Netflix replace going to the school musical, Amazon replace the trip to East Street stores, streaming Garth Brooks replace going to a local country music festival? Six months of alternatives, can become the new norm. Why do you think NRL is so desperate to get matches re-started? We need to be players in this covid-19 chess game not just pawns, have a say with what changes we’d like to see adopted. Build on the current circumstance community sympathy and voice what changes we would like, a cleaner, healthier planet for example. Not look back at 2020 and wonder how we allowed some alternative policies to occur. Every ripple starts with just one drop.