Along came a virus…

Merely a personal anecdote this, but during lockdown and for obvious reasons we have been spending considerably less than usual. Only one holiday this year instead of the usual four, very few café visits until recently, no meals out, no alcohol, car mileage far lower than usual and hardly any clothes shopping.

Not an uncommon lockdown experience I imagine, but looking back a few decades, as the spending power of the general population increased so did the power of ordinary people to influence the growth of enormously powerful markets. Power in this sense is complex and it is usual to say the markets are powerful but in a political sense so are their customers. This illustrates a main plank of socialism – neutralise democracy by closing down or controlling markets thereby closing down the power of ordinary voters.

Then along came a virus…

It seems clear enough that an underlying pandemic objective has been for the suspiciously draconian political response to leave a lasting impact on popular habits of consumption. It may not work but this appears to be an opportunist objective – instil a sense that frugal is okay and modern frugality need not be limiting and excess is irresponsible anyway. Not a new message but a new opportunity to ram it home good and hard.

Politically it adds up yet I can’t say that the daily round is less rewarding than it was. Socially restrictive perhaps, but modern communication goes a long way towards mitigating that. Life is slightly more frugal but we grew up in the fifties so this version of frugal is wildly opulent in comparison. A positive note is that we have been reminded of our own resources and things we could have done but never did.

Life certainly has been restricted compared to a few months ago, but we’ve adjusted and it is not easy to claim it is somehow worse. Politically life is worse though, because we have been compelled to accept the threadbare reality of our supposed democracy, the erratic power of bureaucracies, their inability to attract sceptical expertise, the inadequacies of the NHS, state education and mass media.

The problem for the future is political in that a more frugal lifestyle has merit but is bound up with climate change nonsense, environmental hyperbole and the jackboot flavour of its totalitarian politics. It is also tied to some extremely dishonest people and institutions. This is a political ethos which has to be avoided if we are to pass on even frugal political freedoms to future generations.

Unfortunately the pandemic response suggests that there is no political intention to pass on any political freedoms to future generations. That ship has almost sailed – at least the virus has made that clear enough.