What’s impossible not to notice is how the lockdowns exposed the intricacies of the world’s market economy. We are hearing a lot now about long Covid, the physical aftermath of the virus. As debilitating is long economic Covid.
Long economic Covid is why anyone you sit next to at dinner can dilate on the arcana of interrupted global supply chains. We’re now coming to realize how the market economy’s performance and benefits are taken for granted. All those goods—made, purchased, packed and shipped—were as reliably available as turning on a light. Actually, one of the things we’ve learned during this time is that even turning on a light isn’t like turning on a light. Disrupt the always-on but complex power grid, as in Texas and California, and the lights stop coming on.
This persistent post-pandemic disruption is the result of government choices. In 2020, the public sector told the private sector simply to stand down. When the pandemic lockdowns were extended deep into 2021—in the U.S., France, U.K. and elsewhere—the global economy’s extraordinarily complex grid of relationships fractured at every level.
Layoffs were widespread, ending paychecks overnight. Trucking hasn’t recovered. Airlines are struggling with flight-canceling staff shortages. Manufacturers can’t fill orders for lack of basic parts, workers or a reliable transport system.
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