Re: <nettime> The Covid Pandemic: Seven Lessons to be Learned for a

[Prem Chandavarkar <prem.cnt@gmail.com>]

Thanks Michael,

Perhaps I was not clear.  I do not propose an isolationist self-reliance - that is not feasible at all.  International scales of operation are still necessary.  I only argue that in the attempt to define what should be done at the local level and what should be done at the national or international level, we should go by the principle of subsidiarity.  So it is more the question of a layered hierarchy of scales than isolating any specific scale.

Many local nuances can have fundamental import and are judged best at a local scale.  For example, public health responses in a pandemic are most effective when adjusted to local context, rather than swept under universalised formulae of lockdown or social distancing.  We have not been able to effectively deal with a pandemic without resilient local infrastructure, and where it does not exist have been scrambling to quickly assemble some kind of patchwork that can best substitute.

All complex self-organising systems start with a stability of local interactions, but it does not mean those interactions stay local.  A condition of complexity, if it is to be resilient and stable, is that local and non-local interactions should be in relative harmony.  I see too many occurrences in India (and I am sure they happen in other parts of the world) where the global confronts the local with an immediacy that contains an asymmetry of power in which the local is doomed.  The suffering wrought is immense.

Best,
Prem

> On 07-May-2020, at 11:41 AM, Michael Goldhaber <michael@goldhaber.org> wrote:
> 
> Prem has some worthwhile points as a response to the pandemic, but I question the idea that “local government is the core.” Surely an effective international system, rather than the hodgepodge we had, would  have dealt better with an international crisis such as the virus and its spread. Local governments have clearly been shown quite often to be utterly incompetent or downright evil in countering the disease toll. 
> 





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