|Generate QR code
Open Access
Subscription Access
After. Economics and politics of the post-pandemic world
https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2020-5-25-44
Abstract
The coronavirus pandemic that has shaken the world will lay a long shadow for many years. It puts humanity in the face of incredible challenges that coincide with other negative mega-trends and unresolved economic, social and political problems. The enormous consequences and costs of the pandemic — human and social, economic and financial — will be known only ex post. While some lose nothing, others lose everything, sometimes even their lives. The heterogeneous, post-pandemic future — in which under the conditions of irreversible globalization various political and economic systems will interact with each other — will follow many paths, with the position of highly developed countries becoming relatively weaker. Tensions on the US—China line will increase, geopolitics and geoeconomics will change. The confrontation between democracy and authoritarianism will intensify, the synergy of the market and the state will be transformed. It will be particularly dangerous to turn two sides of the same counterfeit coin as an alternative: neoliberal capitalism versus populist capitalism. Chances for the better future may be created by a gradual transition to new pragmatism. It is a strategy of moderation in economic activities and a triple — economically, socially and ecologically — sustainable development based on the outline of an innovative, unorthodox and holistic economic theory. Pandemic is also an immense challenge for social sciences, not only for economics, because old manner of thinking will often occur to be useless for analyzing and explaining new situations.
Keywords
pandemic,
crisis,
globalization,
future,
economic policy,
development strategy,
imagination,
democracy,
new pragmatism
JEL: A1, E02, E65, F02, H12, H68, I15
About the Author
Gr. W. Kolodko
Kozminski University
Poland
Poland
Grzegorz W. Kolodko, TIGER — Transformation, Integration and Globalization Economic Research
Warszawa
References
1. Arthur W. B. (2015). Complexity of the economy. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
2. Ashworth J. (2020). Quantitative easing. Newcastle: Agenda Publishing.
3. Baіtowski M. (2017). Evolution of economics and the new pragmatism of Grzegorz W. Kolodko. TIGER Working Paper Series, No. 136. Kozminski University, Warsaw.
4. Baun M. J. (2019). An imperfect union: The Maastricht Treaty and the new politics of European integration. New York: Routledge.
5. BBC (2020a). Calls for debt relief for world’s poorest nations. BBC News, April 7.
6. BBC (2020b). Coronavirus: Millions will be left in poverty, World Bank warns. BBC News, March 31.
7. BBC (2020c). Coronavirus: Marathon talks over EU virus rescue package stall. BBC News, April 8.
8. Brown K. (2019). What does China want? China’s world. London; New York: I.B. Tauris.
9. Deneen P. J. (2018). Why liberalism failed. New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
10. Diamond J. (2019). Upheaval. Turning points for nations in crisis. New York; Boston; London: Little Brown.
11. Economist (2020). Everything’s under control. The state in the time of covid-19. The Economist, March 26.
12. Economy E. C. (2018). The third world revolution: Xi Jinping and the new Chinese state. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
13. Foster J. B., McChesney R. W. (2014). The endless crisis. How monopoly-finance capital produces stagnation and upheaval from the USA to China. New York: Monthly Review Press.
14. Frydman R., Phelps E. S. (2020). Beating the coronavirus is the best stimulus. Directing businesses to fight the pandemic would help workers more than an infrastructure splurge. The Wall Street Journal, April 7.
15. Galbraith J. K. (2014). The end of normal: The great crisis and the future of growth. New York: Simon and Schuster.
16. Galbraith J. K. (2018). Backwater economics and new pragmatism: Institutions and evolution in the search for a sustainable economics. TIGER Working Papers Series, No. 138. Kozminski University, Warsaw.
17. Harvey D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
18. ILO (2020). ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work. Second edition. Updated estimates and analysis. International Labour Organization, Geneva, April 7.
19. Jones G. (2020). 10% less democracy: Why you should trust elites a little more and the masses a little less. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
20. Klein M. C., Pettis M. (2020). Trade wars are class wars: How rising inequality distorts the global economy and threatens international peace. New Haven: Yale University Press.
21. Kolodko G. W. (2002). Globalization and catching-up in transition economies. Rochester, NY; Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: University of Rochester Press.
22. Kołodko G. W. (2010). Świat na wyciągnięcie myśli. Warszawa: Prуszyński i S-ka.
23. Kolodko G. W. (2011). Truth, errors and lies. Politics and economics in a volatile world. New York: Columbia University Press.
24. Kolodko G. W. (2014a). Whither the world: The political economy of the future. Houndmills; Basingstoke; Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
25. Kolodko G. W. (2014b). The new pragmatism, or economics and policy for the future. Acta Oeconomica, Vol. 64, No. 2, pp. 139—160. https://doi.org/10.1556/AOecon.64.2014.2.1
26. Kolodko G. W. (2018). Socialism, capitalism, or chinism? Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 51, No. 4, pp. 285—298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2018.10.002
27. Kolodko G. W. (2019). Economy and security, or Cold War Two. In: Global development: Challenges of predictability and manageability. The 19 th International Likhachov Scientific Conference, St. Petersburg University of the Humanities and Social Sciences, St. Petersburg, May 22—24, pp. 100—105.
28. Kolodko G. W. (2020). China and the future of globalization: The political economy of China’s rise. London etc.: I.B. Tauris—Bloomsbury.
29. Kolodko G. W., Postula M. (2018). Determinants and implications of the Eurozone enlargement. Acta Oeconomica, Vol. 68, No. 4, pp. 477—498. https://doi.org/10.1556/032.2018.68.4.1
30. Koźmiński A. K., Noga A., Piotrowska K., Zagorski K. (2020). The balanced development index for Europe’s OECD countries, 1999—2017. Springer Briefs in Economics. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39240-6
31. Krastev I., Holmes S. (2019). The light that failed: Why the West is losing the fight for democracy. New York; London: Pegasus Books.
32. Krugman P. (2020). Arguing with zombies: Economics, politics, and the fight for a better future. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
33. Legrain Ph. (2010). Aftershock: Reshaping the world economy after the crisis. London: Little Brown.
34. Lin J. Y. (2012). New structural economics: A framework for rethinking development and policy. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
35. Maçães B. (2018). Belt and Road: A Chinese world order. London: Hurts.
36. McLean B., Nocera J. (2010). All the devils are here: The hidden history of the financial crisis. New York: Portfolio.
37. Milanovic B. (2016). Global inequality for the age of globalization. Cambridge, MA; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
38. Milanovic B. (2019). Capitalism, alone: The future of the system that rules the world. Cambridge, MA; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
39. Morris I. (2010). Why the West rules — for now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future. London: Profile Books.
40. Obbema F. (2015). China and the West: Hope and fear in the age of Asia. London; New York: I.B. Tauris.
41. Pieterse J. N. (2019). Globalization and culture. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
42. Posner R. A. (2009). A failure of capitalism: The crisis of ‘08 and the descent into depression. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press.
43. Randers J. (2012). 2052: A global forecast for the next forty years. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing.
Review
For citations:
Kolodko G.W. After. Economics and politics of the post-pandemic world. Voprosy Ekonomiki. 2020;(5):25-44. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2020-5-25-44
Views:
4903
Email this article 
