In October 2020, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab noted the huge global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in several areas, including primarily, local economies and public health care systems as well as its deleterious effect on human rights, for example, in terms of aggravating inequality.
As Schwab noted, after World War II countries around the world had made unprecedented strides toward equality and reducing poverty. It was now necessary to maintain the progress achieved through international cooperation so as to continue to improve human rights and enable further investment in innovation, research and development.
According to Schwab the world was moving towards the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, focusing on technological advances and digitization. Although those gave us the opportunity to overcome the pandemic crisis, including through the rapid development of vaccines, new treatments and personal protective equipment, it was not enough. Investment was still required in education and health care to better protect the world from similar crises in the future.
Neoliberal ideology in particular required rethinking. Schwab argued that the free market harmed employees’ rights and their economic security. Neoliberal ideology enabled the emergence of massive new global monopolies capable of harming customers’ rights. In turn, trade, taxation, and competition regulation was required to handle such harm.
Schwab suggested that we should not cancel the basic engines of economic growth, instead a new innovative business model had to be encouraged. Talking of the consumers’ point of view, Schwab explained: “today’s consumers do not want more and better goods and services for a reasonable price. Rather, they increasingly expect companies to contribute to social welfare and the common good”, adding that modern corporations also had to be social organisms, table to take long-term views.
The pandemic has proved that governments, businesses, and civil-society groups must cooperate to meet global challenges. There is a growing need to build institutional platforms for public-private cooperation, and it is also vital for the younger generation, as future leaders, to participate. Most importantly, citizens at all levels must act together irrespective of background and political opinions.
[1] See Klaus Schwab, We must Move on from Neoliberalism in the Post-COVID Era World Economic Forum (October 12, 2020) available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/coronavirus-covid19-recovery-capitalism-environment-economics-equality?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_scheduler&utm_term=COVID-19&utm_content=13/10/2020+11:00.
