WHAT WE OWE EACH OTHER

An appeal to use the occasion of the pandemic to recast our view of rights and obligations.

“Moments of crisis are also moments of opportunity,” writes Shafik, the director of the London School of Economics. Challenges abound, from climate change to the economic meltdown that has followed the spread of Covid-19. The social contract of yore was a kind of social superego: In exchange for paying taxes, serving in the military, sitting on juries, and the like, the state would deliver certain services, such as defense, roads, and education. To some extent, the state thus charged is necessarily a welfare state. However, writes the author, a welfare state does not exist only to redistribute wealth, as critics of democratic socialism charge, but instead to serve as a kind of “piggy bank” that helps mitigate challenges as they arise. No one knows when they’ll get sick or how long they’ll be able to work, which leads to a system wherein the young and old pay less into it than do those in their most productive years, drawing benefits and then paying for them before drawing benefits again. Some states are better than others at all this. Ultra-capitalist Singapore, Shafik writes, is more socially equitable than “nominally communist China,” which has no mechanism for taxing the estates of the wealthy. The author also advances the important argument that a new social contract must be formally stated rather than just “moral suasion.” In such a scenario, “those who lose their jobs have an obligation, if they are physically and mentally able to do so, to retrain if necessary and return to work as soon as possible.” More than anything else, a social contract that includes provisions for equal pay for equal work, the right to health care, and other such things requires willing participation, but it is “ultimately about increasing the accountability of our political systems.”

A welcome update of Rousseau-vian ideals of duty, responsibility, and reciprocity.