There is talk about infrastructure in the US to support the recovery. I have urged the need to think low carbon high sustainability infra. But not my point today ...
This however improbably resonates with Newton and Kissinger!
Newton famously said that « we build too many walls and not enough bridges ». Walls seems to be the name of the game today. And already before the crisis!
Kissinger in a recent WSJ Oped just wrote : « The founding legend of modern government is a walled city protected by powerful rulers, sometimes despotic, other times benevolent, yet always strong enough to protect the people from an external enemy ... The pandemic has prompted an anachronism, a revival of the walled city in an age when prosperity depends on global trade and movement of people ».
So we erect walls again! Not bridges. Walls between countries. Walls within countries.
Distrust.
And growing gaps between the lower and middle classes and the better off within countries, between the developing and emerging countries and the advanced economies at the global stage.
These people and countries will suffer more during the crisis and will also not benefit from recovery the same and run the risk of being left behind. Unless we build bridges! Many.
