When we reopen the economy, how much money will be spent on goods and services?
Post-COVID-19 hurdles include Health security & financial security.
If Demand=Jobs=Money, then
Low demand=few jobs=scarce money=abandoned resources=worse than 1932
Solution: Money can no longer be a surrogate for resources.
In the housing crisis that led to the great recession of 2008-9, money evaporated from the economy, leading to the abandonment of millions of homes due to defaulted mortgages, which destroyed billions of dollars worth of resources from neglect.
We do not need to repeat 2008-9, 1929-39 or worse.
We just need to acknowledge that money is not the same as resources, and devise another means of distributing resources.
Contemplate a resource management based economic system.
Sustainability is the central tenet.
Utilization is the currency.
Gluttony & waste are global security vices.
Stewardship of resources, not ownership, is a virtue.
Consideration for the well being of our progeny becomes an obsession.
Sounds like Utopia?
So did free market capitalism compared to hunter-gatherer-barter societies, medievalism, and colonialism.
Utopia is actually just the next step in our social evolution.
The Bubonic plague of 1346-53, ending in the Great plague of 1665-66, destroyed Mercantilism in Europe creating space for free market capitalism.
Today, COVID-19 has destroyed our modern, integrated, free market economy.
The post-COVID-19 economy will require a systemic recapitalization.
The only question remaining is what new economy will we choose to build.
