Covid-19 is reviving an all-powerful state

Draconian but effective: Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province has reopened after more than two months of lockdown due to the Covid-19 outbreak. — AFP

THREATENING the world with a long recession, the Covid-19 pandemic looks set to inaugurate a turbulent new political and economic era. Its main tendencies will become visible over the months and years to come. But the most revolutionary shift is already in sight.

The state, much maligned in recent decades, is back and in its fundamental role: as Leviathan, the preventer of anarchy, and the ultimate insurance against an intolerable human condition in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.