COVID upheaval may prompt long overdue repudiation of selfishness disguised as austerity

The implications of the current crisis are unknowable, but there is a school of thought this upheaval will lead to a re-examination of this mentality, with an eye to rebuilding more generous social structures.

Conservative efforts to hollow out government in the name of austerity and private sector superiority were championed by the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, pictured at Camp David in 1984, and often bankrolled by the super-rich. Photograph courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

Opinion

BY LES WHITTINGTON

April 8, 2020

OTTAWA—More than a decade has passed since, during the 2009 financial meltdown, we heard the now-resurrected refrain: “We’re all socialists now.” That ironic phrasing is, of course, a recognition of the reality that, in the worst of times, people turn to government to inject large quantitie...

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