Poverty, by Boris Grigoriev
The suspension of normal economic activity because of the COVID-19 pandemic provides us with an opportunity to reconsider the values on which our political economy is based.
Pope Francis has called for a downshifting and taking stock, to renew our civilisation, for “a humanistic and ecological conversion that puts an end to the idolatry of money and places human life and dignity at its centre.”
The compassionate responses of many people during this pandemic have shown possibilities for such a renewal. But the pandemic has also shown how our best human efforts can be undermined by the absence of values of care and responsibility within our political economy.
During this crisis, people have been helping others via faith communities, food banks, through established charities and newly set up mutual aid groups. Street by street, neighbours are looking out for each other, physically on the doorstep, and virtually through local WhatsApp groups and other communication platforms.
It is estimated that 1 in 5 people have been volunteering in some way since 23rd March, providing services equivalent to £350 million a week. Up to £1 billion has been spent by households since the lockdown on continued payments to cleaners, gardeners and others - even though those making the payments know that these people are unable to work for them.
All this voluntary activity is vital for neighbours, friends, relatives and colleagues in need of support. But it is also important that we give physical and psychological resources: as human beings we have needs beyond the basics of food and security - to feel we are contributing and are connected to others. It’s what we do to retain our humanity in the face of a disaster.
But lockdown is still overwhelmingly an excluding experience for many, with physical distancing rules compound existing feelings of social isolation for those who are lonely. In addition, staying in the household is sometimes not safe, with calls to Domestic Violence charities on the rise.
For others the community itself is not a safe space. The LGBT+ anti-violence and hate crime charity GALOP has had an increase in reports of incidents of homophobic and transphobic threats, intimidation and violence. Over a third of LGBT+ people say they do not feel safe in their neighbourhood, rising to nearly two thirds amongst trans people.
Local authorities are still coping with Government imposed cuts of up to 50% in their annual national support but are performing a vital local coordinating role in the pandemic. This includes delivering food and medicines to vulnerable people, housing the homeless, administering grants to keep local businesses going, and sourcing and distributing PPE for care homes and their own domiciliary staff
Those working for health CCGs or in schools are also often going above and beyond their duties and are spending down their budgets in order to meet emergency needs. Many Councils are heading for massive financial losses this year as a result. Central Government is still giving no assurances on future funding for this expenditure.
The best of local and community activity cannot substitute for effective Government-led national coordination. There have been thousands of additional deaths in the UK because of national decisions on lockdown timing; the ineffectiveness of centrally introduced test, track and trace; the lack of an overall strategy to protect the care sector; as well as logistical failures in the supply of medical and other essential resources.
Existing wealth and health inequalities in the UK, exacerbated by ten years of Government imposed austerity, have resulted in a doubling of the death rate from the Coronavirus in poorer areas of our country and in working class occupations.
The COVID-19 crisis is also a challenge globally. Hundreds of past and present world leaders and heads of civil society groups have demanded that the next meeting of the G20 be brought forward from November. The failure by the G20, so far, to agree a financial plan to support healthcare in the poorest countries by the richest may push 420 million people into extreme poverty. Gordon Brown has described the lack of a comprehensive plan as a “death sentence” for the world’s poor.
Pope Francis has presented us with the storm at sea in Mark 4:35-41 as the vision of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a challenge for us to unite humanity in the face of the threat to our common home, the earth. We need an ethical reorientation of our society and re-found our political economy on values of care and compassion so that every human life is valued.
Dr Maria Exall is PDRA in Catholic Social Thought and Practice in the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University.