Hope after COVID-19

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

President Joko Widodo was the keynote speaker at the Digital Economy Summit // DevCon / event in Jakarta, on Thursday (27/2//2020).

The COVID-19 pandemic has increasingly made a frightening situation of an uncertain economic situation that has already been undermined by digital disruption.

As legal instruments have not been prepared, the COVID-19 outbreak has worsened the economic and social situation. Despite disrupting economic order, from digital disruption lies hope thanks to its innovative aspects. However, the economic disruption because of COVID-19 has made things gloomy. Disruption is different than a trend. A trend has patterns of change that make it possible to make predictions because they are more easily identified and followed. With trends, we have reliable historical data because patterns of change tend to be gradual.

Digital disruptions break the pattern of change because they are marked by a wave of innovation. Usually disruption starts with a response to a critical problem that triggers many unpredictable changes, so it is difficult to capture the core of disruption (B Johansen, 2017: 10-11). Similarly, the incomprehensible side of COVID-19 is very disruptive: troublesome, even devastating, because it is transformed into a process that interrupts the whole program of life together.

Read also: Ending the Covid-19 Epidemic

Is there still a small spark of hope in this stressful situation? Let us learn from the positive understanding of "digital disruption" popularized by Joseph Schumpeter with the term "creative destruction" (E Topol 2013: 14). "Creative destruction" refers to the transformation that accompanies radical innovation due to digital technology. Many things are destroyed creatively to be radically changed into new things. Could the COVID-19 disruption, which is devastating for the economy, still be engineered to be directed toward creative destruction?

Freedom and meaning of life

The more tense, difficult, and tragic a situation is, the more urgent it is to make a decision. "We have never felt so free, except when under German occupation (Sartre, 1944)." Sartre made the statement in an effort to explain what freedom means. The severity of a situation punishes us to choose and give commitment. So, in a threshold situation, the world becomes a mirror of freedom because the choice is only to be against and give commitment. Meanwhile, outside that choice means denying freedom (mauvaise foi), deceiving oneself, or running away to find an alibi of responsibility.

The root of freedom even lies in accepting limitations, while still being challenged to give meaning to life.

Being exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are aware of human limitations, but at the same time refuse to give up. The root of freedom even lies in accepting limitations, while still being challenged to give meaning to life.

Contradiction even becomes a condition for transcending oneself: designing new relationships with the world, others, and oneself. If I am slandered, I am angry, that makes sense; if I am cornered, I protest, it is natural; if I am insulted, I retaliate violently, that is understandable. However, if I am slandered, cornered, and insulted, I forgive, it is a form of self-transcending. That is freedom because it is no longer dictated by cause-effect relationship, reciprocal relations, and no longer held hostage by hatred and desire for revenge. Thus, self-transcending becomes a form of reconciliation to contradictions because freedom as self-transcendence gives new dignity for humankind.

Read also: Preparing for the Worst

The new dignity promises fullness of value through a struggle. In the desperation of COVID-19, the struggle remains not without value because we are trained to look for reasons for hope. Hopefully this experience awakens the hearts of privileged groups, causing them to share well after the virus. Because, despair opens reflective horizons by returning human to themselves and their history. Desperation and hope are like the two sides of a coin, similar to the desire to live always in the shadow of death. In a careful way, Albert Camus explained through this analogy: "There is no sun without a shadow ..." If the COVID-19 pandemic is a shadow, let us see the sun. Are these disruptive changes and uncertainties opening new visions and clarity of thought?

Solidarity and efficiency

The development of the seeds of solidarity that grow during this pandemic gives us a ray of hope. However, digital disruption can be a fog that is ready to overthrow this sense of solidarity because of the competitive economic system. This free competition, which is increasingly driven by digital disruption, only benefits creators, innovators and producers. The liberal idea always mystifies as if all have the same opportunities, even though in reality the strong are more ready to compete. This system of relying on the right-to-all-reward winners exacerbates socio-economic inequality.

On the one hand, the life of the winners is always colored by excesses of consumption, the pursuit of self-fulfillment, immediate satisfaction, and easy access to cultural activities thanks to economic resources and social capital. On the other hand, marginalization makes the losers silent, and cannot even formulate what assistance is needed. The situation of competition fosters a sense of injustice that leads to social class polarization. As a result, feeling treated unfairly creates the feeling of insecurity for everyone. This experience culminates in a useless feeling that easily turns into anger and hatred. In a situation like this, social emotion is easily ignited and becomes fertile ground for radicalism. In fact, public institutions are not ready to face the problem of unemployment and marginalization.

KOMPAS/AGUS SUSANTO

A jamu (herbal tonic) seller drives down Jl. Mas Mansyur near Tanah Abang Market, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday (31/3/2020). The ordinarily congested area has become deserted as a result of the market’s temporary closure to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Opportunities to reduce socio-economic inequality still exist if the state is able to anticipate with its legal products to restructure the economic system that takes into account the gaps in social logic. State incentives to companies must be directed to create jobs and improve the quality of life of workers. Corporate social responsibility must be more effective. The CSR budget should not be allocated to the foundations of families, but for the education and training of skilled workers.

Read also: Winning Against Covid-19

The problem becomes difficult when today\'s economic system tends to separate economic logic from social logic. The globalization of financial markets supported by advances in information technology guarantees high capital mobility. Then, capital is separated from social processes. In fact, the social process involves labor as part of the community. Outsourcing and short-term contracts are becoming increasingly prevalent, especially since the COVID-19 experience has increasingly convinced us that work from home without having to go to the office is commonplace.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Staff checks equipment in the intensive care unit (ICU) on Monday (23/3/2020) at the Atlet Kemayoran Covid-19 Emergency Hospital in Jakarta. President Joko Widodo inspected the Athletes Village, which has been converted into a temporary emergency hospital, for its readiness in quarantining and treating Covid-19 patients. The facility can accommodate 24,000 people in quarantine and treat 3,000 patients.

However, the position of the workforce is very weak. This position is exacerbated by the demands of new skills that only open opportunities for those having competency: capability in data analysis, decision making, and hard skills (cloud computing, artificial intelligence, analytical reasoning) for the new technology operations. The workplace is built within the framework of technological speed combined with the Internet of Things (IoT), which enables companies to integrate digital and physical experiences. Opportunities for hope are only in changes in the education system and private sector initiatives to provide skills training to adapt to the new form of work organization.

Building transparency

The new organizational model is no longer centralized, changing from a hierarchical structure to a network and cooperation model. The power is scattered, with easy-to-change-shape organizations more responsive than a centralized hierarchy. Business interactions involve teams, partners with mutual benefits, risk sharing, mutual learning abilities, distant workers, collective dynamics, data exchange and insights (B Johansen, 2017: 3, 67). This new form of organization is made possible thanks to a computer network that is spread out, has no center, develops from the periphery and cannot be controlled. Large-scale economies will be abandoned and economies are developing with small-agile structures with customers becoming the center; bringing together offers and demands in a way that is easily accessible, inexpensive, allows both parties to interact directly and provide feedback (Schwab, 2017: 18-20).

Read also: Reading the COVID-19 Data

This organizational change could provide hope for job creation if the forecast of Klaus Scwhab is correct: Industry 4.0 offers the opportunity to be able to integrate the unfulfilled needs of 2 billion people into the global economy. This means demands for additional products and services (Scwhab, 2017: 33-35). The problem that must be solved is then distribution. If what governs is the principle of "winners of the right-to-all-reward" principle, socio-economic inequality will be increasingly severe.

However, hopes are dripping from blockchain technology (Schwab, 2017: 19) that can guarantee transparency: secure protocols, where computer networks collectively verify transactions before they are recorded and approved, as used at GoCar, Grab, Tokopedia, Airbnb. This system fosters trust so that there are still many people who voluntarily provide assistance to distressed people. Tekfin Kitabisa, thanks to the transparency of its system, fosters trust so that many people are touched to help. The development of blockchain technology should promise to be able to collectively verify transactions so that its distribution is fair. This hope is not without basis because it allows interference with state legislation and is on the agenda of interstate or multilateral agreements.

Haryatmoko, Lecturer at the University of Sanata Dharma and Post-graduate Program of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Indonesia