The Coming Storm
Only in its third decade, the 21st Century has already been battered by several economic storms. The new millennium might have opened with the easy optimism of the early 2000s, yet even these years were punctuated by a series of financial crises as well as rapidly rising inequality. The disparity between rich and poor only intensified after the 2007–2008 financial crash, a generational rupture that echoed the Great Depression of the 1930s and which briefly seemed to threaten the existence of capitalism itself. The weak recovery that followed was accompanied by harsh austerity measures in many nations and a proliferation of low paid, precarious employment for millions of workers. At the same time, the wealthiest in society somehow managed to get even richer as the growth of inequality accelerated in the 2010s. A culture of opulence and greed continued to persist among the elite, a trend that was — for all intents and purposes — promoted by government policy.
In 2020, a new crisis struck. First arising in China at the end of 2019, the Covid-19 virus soon spread throughout the world, overwhelming health systems and condemning millions of the most vulnerable citizens to painful deaths or long-term illnesses. The pandemic forced public authorities to implement harsh lockdowns that saw entire economies grind to a halt and countless workers face unemployment and/or social isolation. But the widespread roll-out of the…
