COVID-19 lessons to learn

COVID-19 has a lot to teach the human family. The underlying chronic malaise of the body politic is glaring inequality and its consequence, sheer poverty, which means lack of adequate income, shelter, health care, food, job security and education. In short, human misery.

School is a great leveler, and without it children from poorer homes are having almost insuperable difficulties trying to continue their education through home-schooling. It has been hard enough for middle-class families in book-lined homes. What happens to children in noisily overcrowded family homes without computers or fast broadband?

The burden of lockdown has fallen particularly on women, often struggling to work from home while also supervising their children. Child poverty is a function of female poverty, a life of eking out low wages week by week. It is generally accepted that the closing of schools has put a generation of children at risk of emotional and educational damage. Parents, mothers especially, are the unsung heroes of this pandemic. A just society would make sure they are recognized.

Recognizing and restoring a sense of the dignity of work needs to be at the core of any post-COVID-19 recovery program. Work dignifies; it does not degrade. It gives identity and purpose. It molds character. How in a just society can workers be excluded from the decision-making that affects their livelihood?

Libertarian certainties about the merits of small government have been undermined by the realization that only government can harness the nation’s resources at such a time of grave peril. The partnership between vaccine manufacturers and government has demonstrated the potency of such private-public cooperation once the private sector switches to other goals than the maximization of shareholder values and instead prioritizes the service of the common good.

This could shake up the whole dynamic of post-COVID-19 capitalism and help it escape the dead end of free market ideology. The only question remains – what are we going to do about it?

Father Paul Magnano

La Conner