Structural Requirements for 2021 Optimism

AFP/GOH CHAI HIN

Customers gather at a street stall in Jakarta on November 5, 2020, as Indonesia tumbles into first recession since the Asian financial crisis.

The question of “can we optimistically enter the new year?” may seem farfetched. The blow dealt by the Covid-19 pandemic has not only caused humans to “stammer” on a global scale but has also radically slackened human activity.

The greater part of the global, also national, economy has abruptly come to a halt. And since the end of this pandemic can’t be predicted, it’s hard to deny that pessimism dominates the structure of human consciousness.

However, in the context of Indonesia, the rate of recovery has increasingly surpassed that of failure. Doesn’t it mean that the technical-medical capacity of Indonesian doctors in handling the unprecedented invasion of the disease has improved?

In technical-economic terms, this optimism was reflected in a Kompas report (23/12/2020) that linked the availability of Covid-19 vaccines with the potential for reducing the restrictions on economic activity. The government’s promise to provide free Covid-19 vaccination for the entire population has raised this economic optimism. But even as indicated by

The Jakarta Post (18/12/2020), Indonesia’s export performance has just scored the highest record over the last two years, reaching US$15.28 billion. This has made our foreign exchange reserves, although slightly down from the October 2020 level of US$133.7 billion, relatively safe, totaling US$133.6 billion in November 2020.

Also read: Amending Strategies in 2021

Therefore, the enhanced capacity of medical personnel in controlling Covid-19 and the export performance that was relatively unintimidated by the virus have provided the technical basis of our optimism in facing the year 2021.

Comorbidity nation-state

Nonetheless, in order to gain a more “lasting” result and secure a structural basis of optimism, Indonesia as a nation should be able to avoid the situation of a comorbidity nation-state. Only in this way will the optimism of a technical nature be more supported by reliable structural factors. I got the phrase comorbidity nation-state (a nation-state internally vulnerable to various problems) from the analysis of Scott Galloway, Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity (2020).

In describing the confusion in which the US is facing Covid-19, Galloway notices several internal weaknesses of the nation-state that make it prone to a “disease” attack. “Like the virus itself, the pandemic hardest hits victims with comorbidities”, he said. Meanwhile, the cost available to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2019 was only US$ 7 billion. “This amount,” he said, “is only sufficient for four days of military operation.”

So, in January 2020, Galloway noted that the neutered health agency was incapable of developing accurate coronavirus testing.

It’s ironic. This is because, examining the book of Meredith Wadman, The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Cost of Defeating Disease (2018), we know that the US is a nation-state that has since World War I (1914-1918) been actively creating vaccines against infectious diseases despite the sacrifice of various aspects of humanity. For this reason, theoretically, although unprecedented in nature, with its several decades of experience, the US should be the most prepared to face Covid-19. The fact is that the US has to spend US$ 3 trillion per year to cure its people suffering from chronic diseases. So, in January 2020, Galloway noted that the neutered health agency was incapable of developing accurate coronavirus testing.

The small fund for disease prevention and eradication is only one of the internal morbidities of the US nation-state. It’s because along with this, the US is also affected by another disease, exceptionalism. The idea of American Exceptionalism, according to Michael Signer in Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies (2009), has long developed. But under Trump, this “ideology” was officially practiced. Consequently, this exceptionalism became an impediment to US global cooperation, especially with China, in identifying and eradicating Covid-19.

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We know that as a result, Americans make up the largest number of victims of this pandemic. Worse still, the unpreparedness to fight Covid-19 is offset by the discrepant policy of capitalism. “In the name of capitalism,” said Galloway, “we have allowed the profits of capitalists without tax burden and have protected this favored group from risk.” When the pandemic tore the US economy, the government just supplied large and small corporations with hundreds of billions of dollars.

The huge funds have not flown into productive sectors, but rather to the bank accounts of “the shareholder class”. This has not only made economic activity stagnant and unemployment increase, but has also given rise to what Galloway calls “the dirty secret”, which is 10 percent of the highest income group remaining in its special position. From share ownership, they earned trillions of US dollars from the pandemic, when the market reached the highest record.

The “peak” of this comorbidity nation-state is the odd reality of the existence of US “capitalism” and “socialism”. Here Galloway calls the US capitalism of the last 40 years a hunger game economy. “If you can create value in this country,” he said, “you can be rewarded with spoils vastly beyond anything comparable in history. If you can’t create value, or if you’re born into the wrong family or you catch a bad break, you’ll likely live on the edge and pay dearly for your mistakes.” It’s in the context of this hunger game economy that he sees the validity of odd “socialism” in the US.

“Despite our rhetoric about personal responsibility and freedom,” he writes, “we’ve embraced socialism.” With cynicism he writes: “We don’t tolerate failure here in our socialist paradise.” Can we imagine that the US is a socialist “paradise”?

Omnibus law, cabinet shakeup and comorbidity state

Yet this “socialism” is only one-sidedly valid. The problem is that every time there’s a crisis that upsets the economy, the state just tends to save large corporations instead of the common people’s economy. In brief, the US “socialism” only applies to giant capital actors, whereas the lower circles

remain under “pure” capitalism. These elements, among others, make the US appear more as a comorbidity nation-state. It also explains why this superpower has failed in responding quickly to Covid-19.

The above description gives us a perspective as we see the move of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo creating the omnibus law, and lately reshuffling the cabinet, as his structural efforts in 2020 to avoid the trap of the comorbidity state and pave the way for 2021 and beyond. Although debatable, the enforcement of diverse laws and regulations as well as the separation of licensing authorities in the hands of regional leaders in the context of business operation so far have been considered internal morbidities in Indonesia.

The intricate legislation network is not a fertile land for the business sector. The omnibus law, therefore, is a “correction” to the long route of business licensing. The cabinet formed at the end of 2019 has also been seen as part of the internal morbidities to overcome Covid-19 and its destructive effect on the economic structure. The cabinet shakeup by including capable young figures thus also constitutes Jokowi’s attempt to avoid the snare of the comorbidity nation-state of Indonesia. In this manner, the state is not only deemed more responsive to dealing with Covid-19, but is also more potential for the achievement of its economic growth target without being intimidated by any pandemic attack, as soon as the year 2021 turns up.

Also read: Optimism Welcomes 2021

This optimism comes to the fore especially because the young figures with professional backgrounds have joined thus new cabinet. Under the banner of the omnibus law that (re-)concentrates the power of licensing in their hands, all members of this economic team, who are well familiar with the disposition of the global business sphere, are expected to become a reliable penetrating force of economic policies.

Social power problem

This is among others the structural basis of optimism for 2021. It’s because the omnibus law and refreshed professionalism of the cabinet serve as the step to avoid the comorbidity nation-state trap. So, the concentration of President Jokowi’s efforts to settle the economic problem is strategic for the future of Indonesia. The question is, what is its implication for the distribution of social power? The phrase social power is quoted from Michael Lind’s The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Manager Elite (2020). Here, Lind states that in Western society today social power has three main divisions: the government, the economy, culture. The problem is just that class conflict occurs in the three.

President Jokowi needs to pay attention to this social power issue more seriously just in his “approach” to the “non-economic” world. The basic question is how far the President’s economic policies enjoy social and cultural reception in society. I need to stress this because since the end-2019 cabinet formation, in his second presidential office until the end of 2020, the initiative of Indonesian political-economic policies has increasingly been dominated by President Jokowi.

Although this development certainly manifests presidential supremacy pursuant to the constitution, this shift has unexpectedly weakened political parties. Political parties, theoretically constituting the institutionalization of aggregate public interests, are shifting into a forum of manifestation of the “ideal concepts” initiated by the President through the legislative mechanism. In the perspective of Lind’s social power, this tendency or shift is problematic, with the potential for Indonesia to repeat the socio-economic and political history of Western countries.

AP PHOTO/DITA ALANGKARA

A drink vendor rides his bicycle reflected in a puddle in the main business district in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020. Indonesia\'s economy entered its first recession since the Asian financial crisis more than two decades ago as the country struggles to curb the coronavirus pandemic under control. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Regarding this, Lind indicates that the social upheavals in the US and Europe today take place due to the deepening influence of pluralism democracy and the emergence of the neoliberalist technocratic regime. While the former developing in the post-World War II period is a political system in which the state is ready to accommodate social groups, especially workers and religious groups sidelined by the pace of changes resulting from modernization and industrialization, the latter has the character of elitism.

In the political sphere, parties are increasingly under the control of capitalists (donors) and media consultants. In the cultural sector, religious activists and civil society are losing their influence even further through the pressure of court judges who generally come from the elite circles that also have the same economic and social libertarian views.

The latter style, in the economic sector, according to Lind, is noticeable in the tendency of big corporations to carry out de-unionization (weakening of labor organizations) and deregulation of the labor market. In the political sphere, parties are increasingly under the control of capitalists (donors) and media consultants. In the cultural sector, religious activists and civil society are losing their influence even further through the pressure of court judges who generally come from the elite circles that also have the same economic and social libertarian views. This, notes Lind, encourages people’s “rebellions” and promotes populist leaders in the US and nearly all countries in Europe at present.

In the Indonesian context, the combination of “people’s” upheaval among workers, religious circles suspecting their marginalization, school and college students in Indonesia in 2020 was apparently repeating the advanced countries’ socio-economic and political history. In the global geopolitical economy, the “ideal” concepts of President Jokowi in economic development indeed structurally needs the appearance of a regime of the neoliberalist technocratic kind. But in line with the principle of democracy, the implementation of such “ideal” concepts should be accommodative toward the groups in society “feeling” they are marginalized. Thus, the optimism for 2021 should be manifested through economic growth with social and cultural bases. With this principle, President Jokowi will leave a legacy of economic growth founded on democracy that is well preserved. Here the balance of social power in all fields can be maintained.

KOMPAS/JOHNNY TG

Fachry AliFachry Ali, Cofounder, Institute for Business Ethics Studies and Development (LSPEU Indonesia)

(This article was translated by Aris Prawira)