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The Seaman’s Mariner’s Curse, Forced to Wear the Dead Albatross Around His Neck, from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Artist: Doré, Gustave Year: 1876 Medium: Woodcut Copyright: Public Domain
As 2020 draws to a close, it feels a bit like we’re in the position of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner character, who was about to join the wedding banquet only to be intercepted by an old sailor. he told a long and sad story of his adventures at sea.
First published in Daily Maverick 168
The wedding guest is mesmerized by the story, and the poem ends with a wonderful quatrain:
He left as stunned
And is helpless of meaning:
A sadder and wiser man
He got up the next morning.
We are all a little sadder and wiser as we wake up for the figurative morning of the morning. And yet, in experience, there is always something to learn, and in this case, it is profound.
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we all obviously didn’t know what to expect. In that doubt, there was a strange utility. Out of necessity, a grand experiment was to be conducted on the correct way to answer.
One of the most interesting was what could be called the Swedish option. As with all experiments, what you need to be aware of is your background, and personally my background aligns closely with the Swedish approach. In principle, I like the idea of trusting the population more than the state. I am very much in favor of personal freedom. I prefer volunteering to diktat. I like the idea of institutional independence.
All of this was evident in Sweden’s approach to the pandemic: The Swedes were asked to be responsible, not ordered like toys. They were trusted as citizens. The economy remained open for the most part.
And for a while, it seemed like it would work. What a contrast to the absurdities of SA’s approach, like banning the sale of cigarettes and everything else. Sweden chose not to impose the wearing of masks and bars and nightclubs remained open. Massive sporting and cultural events were going on until last month.
No longer. The numbers are ready and the Swedish experiment is over. Like the rest of Europe, the northern winter of Sweden will be filled with bans on large gatherings, restrictions on the sale of alcohol and school closings.
The really surprising number is the number of deaths per capita, and here Sweden ranks among the worst in the world. The problem was not so much the first wave, but the second wave. Sweden’s total coronavirus death toll is now more than 7,000, while its Scandinavian neighbors Denmark, Finland and Norway have recorded 878, 415 and 354 deaths since the start of the pandemic, respectively.
That doesn’t sound like a huge number compared to, say, SA’s 22,000, but Sweden only has a population of around 10 million; per capita, it is twice the mortality rate of SA. Finland and Norway have half the population of Sweden, but a small fraction of the deaths.
But here’s the real weirdness; Sweden’s economy did not generate the economic benefits that could have somehow, perversely, offset the higher death rate. Sweden’s GDP fell 8.5% in the first half and unemployment will rise to 10%. This is almost exactly the same level of decline as its Nordic neighbors.
Why did Sweden not benefit from the maintenance of its economy? Mainly because other European governments paired the blockade with business support, which Sweden did not think it would have to do since the country was not blockaded. Recessions everywhere else spread across the border, as did the virus itself.
Seen from the perspective of a macabre experiment, the lesson is a difficult one for supporters of personal freedom like me: Government-imposed rules, in certain circumstances, just work.
And the lesson goes far beyond the coronavirus. There is an argument, for example, that the government should not impose restrictions on bank interest rates. Some chancers will try to charge exorbitant rates, but gradually the public will register them and competition will force lower interest rates. In a way, high interest rates are a necessary evil, for a time, because they draw gamblers into the industry, without which competition won’t force prices down.
The problem with this argument, as we all know by now, is that bankers could collude and keep their interest rates high through a common understanding, an understanding that sometimes doesn’t even need to be communicated. After all, everyone has a powerful incentive to keep interest rates high. This is not even to mention information disparities, or even what economists like to call “externalities”: the price paid externally to the operators themselves.
But the new thing we have learned during the coronavirus is about ourselves. We are simply not the people we hoped to be; we are more gullible, more judgmental, and more often wrong than we expected. Some of us always knew, I guess, but forgive me, I was more hopeful.
So we leave the year a little sadder and, with a little luck, a little wiser. The albatross hangs from all our necks. But not all is lost. The sailor came back after all, if only for the guests at Hector’s wedding. But it also brought a new way of thinking: “He prays better, who loves more, all things great and small,” says the sailor towards the end of the poem.
It is not a terrible conclusion for the new year. DM / BM
Tim Cohen is the editor of Business Maverick.
