Musings on the Pandemic Quarantine:

Many people are thinking about "when this is over," getting back to 'normal' life, doing 'normal' things. In many ways, Normal is history, I predict. In fact, I think this is going to be interesting. I feel like a huge, black Monolith just appeared out of nowhere. Heh.

The United States has had rampant inequality forever. American productivity has been off the charts, while income inequality and economic immobility have skyrocketed, as well. We've been told to work harder! work longer! do more! and that will change our economic outlooks, but it never did. It simply siphoned more wealth out of the hands that created it and into the hands of tiny few who rigged the system.

Companies resisted in making work easier. How many times have you heard CEOs say, "People are more productive in the office," when we have loads of studies and evidence that show people are more productive when they are valued and have the freedom to care for their families. Companies have clung to archaic and infantilizing models of the workplace, but now, they are being forced to trust their employees to do their jobs remotely, for everyone's health and safety. Those that don't are being exposed as the archaic behemoths they are.

Small businesses are struggling to find a way to stay afloat in a world where people are being forced to learn how to do with less. They are trying to find ways to stay relevant in a very different looking society. But some won't reopen.

Inequality in healthcare is glaringly obvious, as well. We are seeing our healthcare model exposed in a way we never have before - rife with preferential treatment, subject to decisions-by-profit, necessities held up by capitalism and red tape, etc.

We have more people than we have work and that's only going to get worse. And the work that is important isn't done by the people who think *they are important. Grocery Store employees, truckers, supply chain managers, nurses, teachers, food service people, the artists - they are the ones who are getting us through quarantine with food, care, and streamed entertainment. Not hedge fund managers, lawyers, or CEOs.

People aren't going to be able to define their societal value by their conspicuous consumption after all this. That low wage grocery clerk will have done more for us when we were in need than someone's McMansion or Mercedes.

As a result, a republican administration is being forced to examine a form of universal basic income to keep the economy from tanking.

I predict the American Dream/Bootstrap/Manifest Destiny model is dying, which is good. It's always been an ugly model. Automation, along with the drastic changes wrought by this crisis, is thankfully destroying it. Non-essential has been defined. Our work models have been redefined. The future is going to look more like UBI and universal healthcare. If we can't accept that and adapt, if we cling to archaic models of the past, we are dooming our country to a third world fate.

History shows us that the elites never fare well when the society they've gorged themselves on falls apart. Remember the Bastille.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, kids.