You know the type of article. I’ve ignored them for years, dismissing such travelogs as nothing more than the kvetching of the elite rich toward the common man and his desire to see the world. There is nothing more conventional than journalists yammering about the evils of “commercialism.”
However, for whatever reason, I read this one in full. Buried in the article was the following:
“The slow eating of our city by mortadella [meat] shops started before COVID but accelerated when, as in many cities, lots of Bologna’s independent shops, cafes and restaurants went out of business during the pandemic. Many of those in the center of town were bought up by chains with deep pockets and a singular vision: to sell mortadella to foreigners.”
The article did not admit this, but any marketing person can immediately see the connection between mortadella and bologna; you guessed it, the American luncheon meat. That’s right, international corporations seized on the town’s name to invent a fake tradition to sell to tourists. That’s cynical, even dark, but entirely expected.
The article continues.
“Downtown has changed completely. In the streets around the historic main square there used to be many old stationery shops—a favorite sold fountain pens, inks in every color and all the hand-bound notebooks one could dream of. It had been there for as long as I can remember, but was recently turned into an ‘Ancient cold cuts butcher.’ It’s part of a chain. Just across from it, in what I think used to be a jewelry store, is a second self-styled ancient butcher from the same chain. When I asked the shop assistant how ancient they were, she replied that they had been open for three months.”
Did you catch that passing mention of “went out of business during the pandemic?” Yes, and, if you have been paying attention these last four years, you know precisely what that means. It’s not about a severe flu. It’s about the response to the flu, namely the brutal lockdowns that destroyed small businesses even as big businesses, all over the world, were allowed to function normally, provided the customers were masked up and vaccinated.
They were replaced by heavily capitalized multinationals that were in a position to weather the storm. This all happened in the course of a mere two years. We all felt it and saw it.
I recall getting a message from a friend who achieved his dream of making and marketing a charcoal toothpaste, working 18-hour days to develop supply chains. He had 150 employees, and life was good, with robust supply chains and a bright future. Then the lockdowns hit. Eighteen months later he had to notify everyone that the company would go bankrupt and that everyone would lose their jobs. The end.
He cried deeply and has never recovered from the devastation. I’ve cried for him too but millions are in his position. The lockdowns transformed life for billions of people globally, shattering dreams, wrecking businesses with long traditions, destroying intellectual and physical capital, transforming small towns with organic structures of enterprise into hubs for multinational sellers of junk.
This story is shocking and overwhelming, but largely unreported. The policy response to the pandemic might as well have been concocted by big business and big banks to crush their competition forever, for that is exactly what happened. It’s a stretch to say that this was the intention, but I fully understand those who say that this was the plot all along. That’s a normal and natural response, to believe that this was all by intention.
In the weeks following the pandemic policy response, and the lockdowns, the World Economic Forum released a book called “The Great Reset.” It was about how the COVID crisis would and should be deployed to usher out one form of enterprise and invite a new form in. We should release our attachments to the physical world and property and instead embrace the digital world, green energy (wind and solar power), and the subscription model of profitability.
Whether this blueprint was an inspiration or merely an opportunistic reflection of what was happening is not known, but there was no question that something huge was taking place, the replacement of one form of commerce with another. We see it today all around us, from our hometowns to global trade flows. The old world is being swept away not by choice but by force. The situation in Bologna is typical of what has happened worldwide.
Will it work? Not over the long term. There is a certain kind of coercive utopian unleashed on the land who believes that the old limits are no more. Not even mortality should trouble us. We can abolish scarcity with the right form of central plan. Nations of the world have been cajoled into trying this out. The new system is not socialism and it is not communism. It is a form of corporatism that favors new elites against incumbent elites. The rest of us are merely spectators.
There is every reason to think that the “great reset,” however, is not long for this world. The seeds of failure are becoming more evident, as indebted governments deal with raging inflation, growing bankruptcy, fiscal limitations, and heightened voter discontent. Europe has already slid into recession and the United States is headed toward admitting that we never really recovered from lockdowns. Most tellingly, China itself—the world center of great-reset economic strategy—has bumped up against the limits, and is facing waves of bankruptcy, inflation, and debt.
The big picture is that the hubris of mankind has once again got the best of him, but the experiment has produced tremendous pain along the way. Finding our way out will be just as painful. Meanwhile, there is every reason to weep for the small businesses, for it is they who have paid the highest price along the way. Their stories will never be fully told, for there are too many and telling them is too painful. But let’s not forget them.
The various proposals extant to stop taxing tips is welcome but tiny compared with what we really need. The deregulation, budget cuts, and end to the litigation thicket needs to be dramatic and far-reaching in order to save small enterprises. Whether it is Bologna or your hometown, it is the small merchants who have built the best of the modern world. They deserved far better.
