The new ABC - Altruism Beats Corona

The Guardian magazine is tracking, how many articles they publish on populism. It was 300 in 1998, 1000 seven years later, and 2000 just another year later. Over the course of 20 years, populist parties have tripled their votes in Europe. The analysis shows that the motivation for voters to not only think populist but actually vote for a populist party is based on several elements. Societies are more individualistic; thus voters act more volatile. Mainstream parties have converged in the middle, in an attempt to dig into each other's territory, thus leaving more space on the fringes. A number of crises, i.e. the financial crisis, the Euro crisis, and the immigrant crisis are by many seen as a failure of the establishment. And finally, corruption, nepotism, and cliques are seen by many as a sign of calcination of incumbent parties and institutions.

When influential movements in a country attempt to draw up a framework to capture the populist energy in the electorate, the easiest way to do that is to project a nationalistic image. Once nations act egoistically or mercantilistic, why should the individual not? In quick succession, populism leads to nationalism, and that in turn to egoism. People tend to find someone or something to blame for what they believe serves to their disadvantage. What is more natural than blaming the opposite? Populists blame foreigners, nationalists blame globalization, and egoists blame legislation since it restricts their own decisions. That means that collaboration, international institutions, and rules & regulations get first questioned, then weakened, and eventually even circumvented. That is a dangerous development.

It is indeed ironic, how at the peak of this movement an external factor strikes that puts everything upside down. The Covid-19 Corona virus doesn't stop at borders. It can only be fought with meaningful speed and effectiveness if nations work together. And most importantly: egoism will not pan out. It is altruism that is the base of slowing and finally eliminating the viral threat. Reducing one's own freedom to protect others. Helping those who are most vulnerable - the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions - even if it means higher risk, cost, and effort for oneself. Those with a lower risk of suffering from complications, the young and strong, need to self-restrict to reduce the risks for the others. Scarce resources need to be shared, egoistic stockpiling prevented, and any insights, data, test results, medication, or vaccine needs to be made available to all, accelerating international collaboration. Humankind has survived several plagues. How large the human suffering and economic damage gets, has always depended on how quickly, consequently, and altruistically societies reacted to the threat. In the end, the individual is only safe, if an entire population achieves herd immunity.

It is not surprising that currently, populist parties are losing out significantly in opinion polls. Those people who sometimes think populist, but usually did not vote extreme, are asking themselves, if they want to be governed by calm, experienced, mainstream politicians or by shrill, noisy amateurs. In uncertain times people seem not to want more excitement, but rather dull and predictable work to get done. Corona forces the political class to take a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. Every nation with an administration carved from the right wood should be thankful!