In Depth, Out Loud

In this episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast, Simon Mair, Research Fellow in Ecological Economics at the University of Surrey’s Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, says we could use the coronavirus crisis to rebuild, produce something better and more humane. But we may slide into something worse.The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises: the prioritisation of one type of value over others. This dynamic has played a large part in driving global responses to COVID-19. So as responses to the virus evolve, how might our economic futures develop?From an economic perspective, there are four possible futures: a descent into barbarism, a robust state capitalism, a radical state socialism, and a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid. Versions of all of these futures are perfectly possible, if not equally desirable.You can read the text version of this in depth article here. The