Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)

Review: Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World

(My apologies! This review was written quickly.)

This book was a nice introduction and discussion of themes regarding Covid-19 and how it will impact the 21st century. Part Steven Pinker, part Yuval Noah Harari, a (very) little Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a hefty dose of mainstream International Relations scholarship (think John Ikenberry, but also Kenneth Waltz), some E.H. Carr, Joseph Stiglitz, and Parag Khanna. The book is a very readable work of mainstream scholarship. It also makes a powerful case for reform over revolution, and more importantly for a melding of realism and idealism.

What it is not is counterintuitive. If anything this is a great aggregation of mainstream scholarship, much of it covered in other sources (I recommend reading Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century before reading this). However, for those who see themselves as well-read on 21st century issues, people who follow the news, perhaps read the Economist or New York Times, and have some background in International Relations, this book will not blow you away with any one or two highly original insights.

That being said, even if you are well-read on the subjects you might want to read this as a kind of review.

The Bat Effect. This chapter details the effects of plagues on history, including the plague that swept Athens during the Peloponnesian war, the Bubonic Plague of the 1300s, the Spanish flu following World War I, and now Covid-19. 

Buckle Up. The chapter begins with a little bit of International Relations background: anarchy (no world government), interdependence, and globalization. All of these phenomena are layers on top of one another. The world is anarchic (no world government), but we have also become dependent on one another through processes of globalization. We live in a world that is now open, fast, but also unstable. How did the pandemic come to be? One answer is that we live closer to nature now because of our destruction and manipulation of nature and our proximity to animals. The end point of the chapter: that humans need resilient systems of government is probably too vague to be useful. However, it does set up key points for later in the book.

What Matters Is Not the Quantity of Government but the Quality (also read, The Future is Asian). Do democracies handle pandemics better than dictatorships? What about small government versus big government? The chapter argues that quality of government was most important. (For an echo of this sentiment, you can read Parag Khanna's The Future is Asian and his argument that technocratic government is the model for the 21st century). The argument is that in one way or another states are all trying to reach the ideal of either Denmark or Singapore (depending on your region and how you feel about democracy). Much of the chapter is focused on the United States and how anti-statist ideology has eroded the ability of the country to govern itself. Though the chapter does not put it so eloquently, its argument is simple: the first step to have a quality government is believing in government.

Markets Are Not Enough (also, read anything by Joseph Stiglitz). This chapter examines a topic that is much broader than the pandemic (but which the pandemic once again brought into the spotlight), the relationship between government and markets. This is a conversation that has been going on for a very long time – authors engaged in this debate include Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and before them John Kenneth Galbraith. One could write the history of the 20th century as a victory not of capitalism but of the mixed economy. Once again, we see Denmark as an example of how governments work dynamically with markets. Populism is discussed as an outgrowth of the insecurities of market capitalism and globalization. The chapter is a pretty good entryway into a discussion that will persist.