Editorial — By Dr. Hanna Szymborska, Birmingham City University Business School
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is calling the coronavirus-induced economic crisis “the Great Lockdown.” But while it is tempting to maintain linguistic consistency, this term is misleading. The record rates of unemployment and dramatic decline in economic growth are direct outcomes of policy choices promoted by the dominant economic paradigm since the 1980s — one that says free markets are the best way to organise our economic lives.
The coronavirus recovery ahead requires a new way of economic thinking — one that puts the wellbeing of society over individual success and fundamentally challenges what is valued and financially rewarded by the economy. The underlying causes which make this crisis so severe — inequality, insecure employment, market concentration — are direct outcomes of the mainstream approach to economic thinking and policy.
We face a unique opportunity to fundamentally rethink the priorities of economic policy. Responses to the pandemic show that governments have the means to invest in healthcare, education, and research. To build back better economies after the pandemic, we must put social and environmental wellbeing before private profit. The debates on how higher government spending should be financed must go beyond the “there is no alternative” view of economic policy and seriously consider different approaches to public debt, taxation, green monetary policy, and managing inflation.