In the recent days, we can observe social unrests and riots in different European countries:
- In the Netherlands – triggered by introduction of curfew
- In Poland – triggered by prohibition of abortion in all cases
- In Belgium – occasionally because of police, youngsters tensions
- and in may other European countries in smaller intensity
In my opinion, it is just a prelude of what it is coming. The reasons for protests and riots are actually less relevant. They just “ignite” the social unrests. It is not about curfew or abortion as such. I believe, it is more generalised “unhappiness” of the societies and broadly understood lack of “vision” for the future or in other words desperation.
I believe, we have reached the end of an “époque” of “happy” globalisation, which started after the fall of communism in Eastern European countries and fall of Berlin Wall. We can even extend this period to whole 80 years after the Second Wold War.
I think the reasons are simple… we reached the end of the “capitalism” game. Not that I am against capitalism… I know from my own experience that communism doesn’t work. Unfortunately, capitalism neither. The latter one is a bit like the Monopoly game. We play, until one or few have everything and the rest are bankrupt. On a world scale we reached this stage. Covid, just accelerated this process. On the top of that, few realise that we are in the middle of technological revolution. New technologies, such as AI, will take many jobs. Yeah, we have heard this before, during the industrial revolution at the end of XIX century: “People we have more time for their leisures”. Well we know from the history, it was not like that … and consequences were quite dramatic.
I try to be an optimist and hope that humanity learnt the lesson of the previous century. The riots, unrests and reactions of various governments give me, unfortunately, arguments, that this is not the case.
We think that post-Covid financial crisis was avoided … Yes we are in recession, but there was no financial drama … Well, I think not yet … For me it is clear that the current financial system is unsustainable. Covid showed there the division line is. There are those who can work from home, buy Apple products and adapt/profit from the technological revolution and “gillets jeaunes”, who cannot.
The question is, will we manage to deal with this division in a peaceful way? Will we repartition goods? In my view, Covid is a “natural” response to human responsibility. I believe that nature is way smarter than human species. There are so many things we don’t understand, especially in makro-scale.
Last, but not least, ironically exactly 100 years ago, humanity underwent Spanish-Flu pandemic – as a result of globalisation then (the spread was result of 1st World War). Covid spread is a result of Globalisation (in our case mass tourism).
We all know what happened 20 years after the Spanish Flu pandemic.
The question is what will happen in the next 20 years …
I have a rather pessimist view…