If one word captures the main economic takeaway from the pandemic, it is surely “shortages”. From March 2020 on, our global economic system seems to have failed us over and over again: first unable to supply the requisite amount of personal protective equipment, then vaccine manufacturing inputs, the vaccines themselves, commodities and raw materials, semiconductors, and the host of durable goods that depend on them, and most recently energy.
The economic consequence — inflation — has come harder and faster than most people expected, but not as hard and fast as the political conclusions many observers and leaders saw fit to deduce: that neither globalisation nor capitalism is fit for purpose. Globalisation, because it eroded national control over the supply of vital goods. Capitalism, because private companies designed their production for “just in time” rather than “just in case” considerations, prioritising efficiency in normal times over resilience in extraordinary ones.
These judgments were touted loudly early in the pandemic, and have inspired policy ever since. All the big economic powers, and many smaller ones, have acted to bend globalised capitalist production patterns towards forms more within the reach of national authorities.