With the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become clear that in this new decade anything is possible and nothing is immutable. From one day to the next, open borders were closed, while social and economic life was brought to a standstill worldwide. Now, a few months later, we face a new reality. The consequences of the crisis are clearly visible.
Covid-19 has led to great uncertainty in society. The danger of epidemics is suddenly real again. To avoid infection, people are prepared to make vast concessions. All over the world, people are giving up their privacy to gain a little more security through various applications. Billions of dollars in aid are tacitly accepted, even if it is uncertain how this aid will be financed or repaid. Questions about the medium and long term consequences are being ignored. Asking them is seen as a sign of a lack of community spirit. Yet they must be asked.
As we struggle with Covid-19, solidarity is the top priority. The intent is to strengthen the cohesion and trust within society, and help us get through these difficult times.
However, it becomes problematic when the call for solidarity is used to undermine basic civil rights, to expand bureaucracy, to hinder entrepreneurship or weaken democracy, or to increase control over the individual by methods supposedly meant to contain the virus. A look back into the past shows that such ostensibly temporary measures can mutate into a permanent state of affairs.
Paradoxically, however, solidarity is disregarded when it
comes to the future of the younger generations, who will have to bear the consequences – financial and otherwise. Could the threat posed by the virus possibly be overshad- owed in the medium and long term by the effects of the measures taken to overcome it?
All of us – young or old, living alone or in a family, entre- preneur, business leader or politician – should consider the consequences of the crisis initiated by the virus and then decide the right path for the long term: restrictions, control and heteronomy or entrepreneurship, trust and self-deter- mination. More than ever before, now is the time to address these values and realign our economic and social systems in such a way that future generations also have bright prospects, and the future is not gambled away due to fear of the virus.
Gisela von und zu Liechtenstein
Member of the Management Board