For those of you unfamiliar with the book, at its heart is a battle between the productive classes – entrepreneurs if you want – and tax-and-regulation-loving bureaucrats in government, as Rand describes them the ‘looters’ that stand in the way of the innovation that could make the world better for everyone. You don’t have to look very far to see this in action today, albeit to a lesser extreme. We see it in policy and regulation that seems to put big business before customers and the environment. We see dying industries protected. We see it in the perverted capitalism of inflated pay packets for chief executives running businesses that they did not build, and run badly.
We also see it in government or union responses to Covid-19 – doing what looks politically expedient rather than what is the right thing to do. Indeed, what may have been an unpalatable view a few weeks ago – that lockdown is far worse than the virus it is trying to protect us from – is taking hold. Walk down any high street and you will see every day capitalists trying to salvage their hard-earned livelihoods in the face of continuing restrictions, which data upon data highlights the folly of. As Mr Bearbull writes this week: “What looks increasingly likely is that the main obstacle to economic recovery will not be the virus, but the response of governments and electorates to a perceived threat.”
Nevertheless, there is optimism, including at this magazine, that this crisis could usher in much-needed change in the way companies and countries are governed. The decision by Compass to offer its retail shareholders a slice of their accelerated placing offers a small but important example of how easily old rules can in fact be ripped up when there is a better, fairer way – which thanks to technology there often is – and when a catalyst for that change has been introduced, like Covid-19. As Mark Robinson writes in Taking Stock “time and regulatory constraints have been shown to be overhyped obstacles”.
How far Covid-19 acts as a catalyst for change elsewhere remains to be seen. Among the cornerstones of the futurology we discuss in our second feature are the ideas that those with power will do anything they can to cling to it, and that human beings are creatures of habit mostly looking to get back to something resembling our old lives. Maybe so – the pub certainly beckons. But Covid has shrugged, shaken the world and exposed many flaws that can no longer be ignored – in the weeks ahead we will be exploring what sort of new future fixing them may bring.
