Is the COVID-19 crisis an opportunity to revisit capitalism to make it more green and equitable? What will be the future and meaning of work in the post-COVID-19 economy? Does the crisis change our ideas about concepts underlying our current economy, such as on freedom and well-being? Are big companies taking their responsibility, or are they taking advantage of the crisis? And what is the ethics of online shopping in these times?
Moral Markets is hand-picking the most interesting and insightful articles and blogs on such questions from around the web. We try to make sure to include a variety of perspectives on the COVID-19 crisis, to aid your own reflection on ethics and economics.
“As the policy failures of recent decades have shown, navigating the intersection of economic theory and practice is never easy, especially when powerful and wealthy interests are involved. The task for economists, then, is to debate not just economics but political economy, and their own place in it.” A review of four recent books
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, shopping, entertainment, and communication have moved online, and tech firms’ share prices have soared. In the latest installment of CoronaNomics, PS contributor J. Bradford DeLong and NYU professor Scott Galloway join The Independent’s Ben Chu and The Telegraph’s Lizzy Burden to discuss whether we are entering an era of higher productivity, or one of surveillance capitalism, monopoly power, and spiraling inequality.”
“Against the capitalist creeds of scarcity and self-interest, a plan for humanity’s shared flourishing is finally coming into view”
“The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on social, economic, and environmental risks that have been building for the past half-century of neoliberalism. Even amid the deep uncertainties of today’s global situation, one thing is clear: it is time to start questioning old assumptions and developing a new paradigm”, argues Klaus Schwab.
“The world has a golden opportunity to build back boldly after the pandemic and put gender equality, social responsibility, and environmental protection at the heart of the recovery. With a deliberate and strategic focus on these issues, the future we sow could be more bountiful than the past.”
“With the country facing an uncertain economic future, the University of Sydney’s Policy Lab has brought together community and climate groups, unions and business groups to identify strategies for creating a different way of making policy and building a new economy coming out of the crisis. The product is our ‘Real Deal’ report released this week.”
“Now that governments have intervened in the market on an unprecedented scale, citizens have every right to demand that newly dependent sectors align themselves with long-term climate-policy goals. Policymakers already have the tools to make this happen, and doing so would accelerate economic recovery,” writes Joseph Stiglitz.
“Digitalization provides a historic opportunity to reset private and public finance in order to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. And the COVID-19 crisis is the ideal moment to seize it.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the high costs that unchecked externalities – such as those resulting from people not wearing face masks – can impose on an economy and society. Economists must begin to examine how these costs can be reconciled with ordinary consumption.”
“It’s no wonder that people like the idea of a job guarantee, with the government as the employer of last resort, promising a job to anyone who wants one. It would avoid the catastrophic and well-documented social, economic, political and cultural costs of long-term unemployment on families, health, life expectancy and communities. And economists love that it’s an ‘automatic fiscal stabiliser’: it increases government spending when the economy is weak by funding the guaranteed jobs, and reduces it as the economy recovers. So, if the benefits of a job guarantee are so big, what’s the problem?”
