We have not seen the World War III yet but after this pandemic, it is not difficult to make reliable projections about what would happen after that. Despite the huge amount of experiences of the world civilizations we simply went back to the social rules of the hunting and gathering societies. We literally became hoarders. Now we need to find a way to reach our “civilization” level just 3 months ago. We need to fast-forward a couple of thousands of years and get back to the end of 2019 in a couple of months.
Societies all around the world have structured ways of regulating and managing social life which are called social institutions, like the education system, health care system, economic system, etc. All of these social institutions are a result of previous experiences and future projections. They are not fixed and they constantly change based on new realities. COVID-19 is now our current reality. Our definition of “normal” will change indefinitely. Nothing will get back to “normal” as we used to know it. Just like the politicians, we all know that if the current stage of “curfew” continues for couple of months the whole social and economic system will eventually collapse. That is the reason why we see the urge to re-open businesses despite the high probability of tsunami-like waves of spread. Now we are trying to find a way to keep the “people” and the “economy” alive at the same time, but unfortunately “keeping the economy alive” looks like winning the war. A new study suggests that relaxing business closures and stay-at-home rules could cost 13,000 lives in Texas and 12,000 lives in Georgia by September 1. But it will also preserve $3.4 billion in statewide income in Texas, and $1.7 billion in Georgia. New York’s tougher restrictions will save 5,000 lives, but cost $2.4 billion in lost income.
The economy has been the driving force of our modern capitalist system. We defined ourselves by our wealth. We looked for easy ways to increase our wealth and climb the social class ladder as quickly as possible. We have been so obsessed with the idea of making a huge amount of money without breaking a sweat. We always fell for the get-rich-quick schemes like our modern inventions of stock markets, lottery, and other “financial” investment tools. Lots of people got really rich with these tools at the expense of the others who lost a lot. You can also think about these schemes at societal level as the exploitation and the colonization of other societies, which are the manifestations of imperialism.
We created this ideal of living in a bigger house and riding an expensive car which resulted in the habit of spending more and more. Even though we strive for this huge amount of products, we assigned the production duty to the “cheap” third world countries like China and Mexico. Instead of producing real/tangible products we focused on the “service” sector, because this is what the economic rules have been telling us; maximize your profits with minimum investment. They mass produced and we mass consumed. The idea of spending constantly as a “consumer” and even buying unnecessary things because they were “cheap” drove us into this “ideal consumer” who forgot to save for hard times.
When you combine the driving economic force of get-rich-quick capitalist system with the “ideal” consumer personality you would produce individuals who would not invest in the industrial production sector. We have forgotten that the production sector, not the service sector would create real, tangible goods. Without those goods our economic system thus our society would become extremely fragile especially when things do not go as planned; see COVID-19!!! It is now clear that the current means of production will not take us to a better stage. Too much reliance and dependence on other countries to provide essential parts of the supply chain brought us to this point.
To get a clear picture of what our economic backbone looks like, let’s look at the Fortune’s list of 10 largest businesses in the US in 2019. There are no “real” production businesses on this list. You can also understand why we are paying a ridiculous amount of monies for health coverages. We just see lists of business moguls with an unprecedented amount of wealth. We are the richest country in the “free” world with one of the worst wealth distribution system. On one hand you can see the extreme accumulation of wealth and on the other hand there are literally millions of people struggling to pay their bills and mortgages amid pandemic. You can’t simply explain the failure of these millions of people from a Weberian Protestant Ethics perspective. This mass misery is not a sign of predestination, this is exactly a system failure.
| Rank | Company Name | Sector | Industry |
| 1 | Walmart | Retailing | General Merchandisers |
| 2 | Exxon Mobil | Energy | Petroleum Refining |
| 3 | Apple | Technology | Computers, Office Equipment |
| 4 | Berkshire Hathaway | Financials | Insurance: Property and Casualty (Stock) |
| 5 | Amazon.com | Retailing | Internet Services and Retailing |
| 6 | UnitedHealth Group | Health Care | Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care |
| 7 | McKesson | Health Care | Wholesalers: Health Care |
| 8 | CVS Health | Health Care | Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services |
| 9 | AT&T | Telecommunications | Telecommunications |
| 10 | AmerisourceBergen | Health Care | Wholesalers: Health Care |
Source: https://fortune.com/fortune500/, 05.07.2020
Even China, which can be called as the “world’s production capital”, has the same non-productive entities at the top of their wealthiest list. They are even worse than the U.S. Five of their top 10 entities, which are among the top 50 in Fortune’s Global 500 list, are just state-owned financial institutions. I believe this also explains how China easily buys “assets” all around the world. There isn’t even a single “technology” company in this list. I can’t categorize China as a “free” society and obviously their wealth distribution system is worse than ours – if there is any.
| Rank | Company Name | Sector | Industry |
| 1 | Sinopec Group | Energy | Petroleum Refining |
| 2 | China National Petroleum | Energy | Petroleum Refining |
| 3 | State Grid | Energy | Utilities |
| 4 | China State Construction Engineering | Engineering & Construction | Engineering, Construction |
| 5 | Industrial & Commercial Bank of China | Banks | Banks: Commercial and Savings |
| 6 | Ping An Insurance | Financials | Insurance: Life, Health (stock) |
| 7 | China Construction Bank | Banks | Banks: Commercial and Savings |
| 8 | Agricultural Bank of China | Financials | Banks: Commercial and Savings |
| 9 | SAIC Motor | Motor Vehicles & Parts | Motor Vehicles & Parts |
| 10 | Bank of China | Financials | Banks: Commercial and Savings |
Source: https://fortune.com/global500/, 05.07.2020
It has generally been accepted that the new information society is based on services rather than industrial production. At the very early times of modern internet which started to link global commercial networks and enterprises during the 1990s, Castells predicted a future society that he labeled as network society or information age. In his very influential trilogy of books, he speculated that by the development of information technology and rising dependency on networks, the time of traditional industrial society was fading away and a new type of economy was emerging. In this new type of economy, which he labeled as “informational economy”, he argued the competitiveness of individuals, companies, and even nations will be dependent on technology, networks, and information rather than the level and power of tangible productivity and manufacturing economy.
I see the information sector as our newest get-quick-rich scheme where there is no real/tangible industrial production. Even as the richest country in the world with the most advanced technologies,we will not be able to survive under these economic conditions for very long.Supposedly “producing” this many things and still suffering from lack of vital goods?!?!?! There is something fundamentally wrong in this equation and it is the lack of producing real/tangible products.
Societies have institutions to meet their needs and governments are the most organized entities that are responsible for every other institution in the society, hence it is the government’s responsibility to regulate the new social order in the post-information society. If we are not a self-sufficient society, then we are not economically independent. The coming society should eventually be a self-sufficient society which would be a hybrid of production (industrial) and information societies with different regulations and taxation systems. We now understand that, in terms of economic rules, one size does not fit all and the governments now need to focus on more equity instead of equality.
The government should work on a new tax reform which will enable different taxing regimes for different sectors. An industrial production company should not be subject to the same tax regime with a service-based company. The information society will collapse if the COVID-19 threat continues for another year. Italy, which is one of the G7 member states, is now on the brink of financial collapse.Italy’s credit rating downgraded to just one step above “junk” by Fitch. This is not a joke and even the most powerful nations are being hit so hard by the ongoing pandemic. Finally, think about all of the financial institutions that are “keeping” your life savings, like the retirement plans and the insurances. It would be a devastating collapse if things do not get back to “normal” soon.
