Jon Bailes considers how free we really are under the free market system and whether the Coronavirus crisis will have revealed this to the public with far-reaching consequences
‘Pubs Shut Till Xmas’ screamed an April headline on the front page of the Sun. Loitering next to it was a small, virus-shaped graphic overlaid with the words ‘596 dead – see page 4’. It was clear which was supposed to be the more sobering thought.
Skip forward two months and there was better news, with the newspaper’s front page banner shouting ‘Vast Orders’, beneath the image of a tray of brimming pint glasses. ‘Super Saturday’ was coming to save us all.
Similar concerns spread across the right-wing tabloids.
In early March, the Daily Mail lamented the possibility of ‘Life on Hold for Three Months’ with the depressing realisation that, alongside massive job losses and hospital overcrowding, “even eating out and shopping may be under threat” due to the Coronavirus crisis. Towards the end of June, with the lockdown set to ease, the potential return of foreign holidays took precedence, as we were told we could now ‘Fly out for sun, sea and 70% off!’
These headlines may seem to be understandable reactions to the loss and stumbling return of normality under COVID-19, but they maintain a narrow focus that repeatedly prioritises the impact of the virus on consumerist entertainment. Of course, aggressively promoting leisure and lifestyle aspirations is as natural to these newspapers as purveying nationalist hysteria. Yet the message has been doubly stark in recent months, as death tolls, job losses and the social effects of lockdown have taken second billing behind the horrors of deprivation from shopping, boozing and weekend breaks.
It appears that a portion of the British (or at least English) public shares their outlook, summed up by footage of packed Soho streets and Bournemouth beaches, or winding queues for the privilege of browsing high street clothes shops.
The easy answer is to dismiss these gatherings as the behaviour of ‘Covidiots’ or the politically misinformed, but this fails to account for the strong cultural entitlement to pleasurable consumption that has built up over decades.
While the official response to COVID-19 has to a great extent reinforced an ideology of individual responsibility and sacrifice for the sake of economic growth, the other side of this has always been the promise of compensation through consumerist expression and enjoyment.
Such choices are among the few means we still have to exercise a sense of control over our lives, as we have largely surrendered our democratic agency to market forces and the political class that props them up. We have arguably even slowly come to accept diminished public services, precarious labour conditions and increasing inequality for a chance to partake in the fun stuff the system produces.
At the same time, this ‘reward’ turns into a widespread pressure to find meaning in purchasable experiences and takes precedence in our culture to the point of excluding non-commodified means of socialising or ways to escape problems such as poverty and loneliness. Just as there is a demand to sacrifice ourselves for the economy or the nation, there is equally a demand to realise forms of short-term enjoyment at any cost.
This pressure is now part of our ideological identity, continuing in a time of crisis and even being raised to the status of a moral principle.
There is a sense in the seaside and town centre crowds of an ethical hedonistic defiance against the virus and social distancing impositions. For some, this activity morphs into an assertion of unimpeachable freedoms that recalls the spirit of the Blitz. But these are weak freedoms – what was once a stand for democracy against the severest authoritarianism is today a display of reckless decadence against an indifferent disease.
The anti-mask backlash can be seen in the same light.
With the usual avenues of personal expression restricted, the need to exert a sense of control or make ‘free’ choices has symbolically formed around this simple public health issue.
Cries of individual rights and an