The Rise of Digitalism: Will the Coronavirus Trigger the End of Liberalism?

“Don’t waste a crisis” – M.F. Weiner, 1976


A famous quote that has often been linked to Winston Churchill in the form “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. Whoever said it, there is a truth to it, and also now we see governments around the world using the crisis to make changes which could outlast the current crisis:


The ‘emergency law’ just accepted in Hungary will allow Viktor Orbán to rule by decree without time limits. The chances that this law will be reverted after the crisis is over are very small;
The Chinese government brought state surveillance to new levels, and experts said that “the Coronavirus has given the Chinese government a pretext for accelerating the mass surveillance”. Moving around in China and entering your house or workplace requires citizens to scan a QR code, to give their name, ID number and temperature, which enables the government to see your exact movements in the past weeks. This is way beyond George Orwell’s 1984. The chances of this surveillance tool being removed after the crisis are small.
The European Commission has apparently looked carefully at the Chinese government as they now also want to track telecom data to model the COVID-19 spread. ...


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