Walden Bello: a life devoted to human rights. From the struggle against dictatorship in the Philippines to proposals for a fairer world after the pandemic. If the greatness of a human being is measured by their actions, he is, by every definition, a giant.

Born in Manila in 1945, he has written himself into the history of the global progressive left. A sociologist, academic, environmentalist and activist, he has known how to anticipate epoch-making changes through instinct and keen observation. As a graduate student in Chile, he understood that the far right could topple President Salvador Allende. In the United States, where he specialised and still teaches, he found evidence that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were propping up Ferdinand Marcos's authoritarian regime (1965–1986). A book he wrote inspired the popular movement that brought it down.

Walden Bello was among the first to say that the "Asian economic miracle" would lead to further disasters, such as the 1997 financial crisis, which foreshadowed those that followed. In 1999 in Seattle he was beaten by police while demonstrating for reform of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and he risked his life during the crackdown at the 2001 Genoa social forum. But he has never given up. In 2003 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the alternative Nobel Prize, and between 2009 and 2016 he served his country in congress. For Naomi Klein he is a point of reference. "In moments when our progressive values are attacked, ridiculed, unpopular, we are put to the test. That is when we must press on," he says in this exclusive interview with LifeGate.

Walden Bello speaks to us from Bangkok, where he chairs the think tank Focus on the global south: "Here I have seen how a robust public health system, working in partnership with civil society, can contain epidemics." Here is his vision of the world during and after the Covid-19 pandemic — yet another crisis forcing us to learn from the past and immediately rethink the future.

Where did you spend the lockdown, and what kind of experience was it for you?
I was stuck in Bangkok, Thailand. But it was a positive experience, because I was able to observe how cooperation between civil society and public health authorities produced a robust response to the crisis. Underpinning this collaboration was a trust built up over fifty years of successful public health campaigns. Thailand contained Covid-19, recording just over 3,150 infections and "only" 58 deaths. The contrast with hundreds of thousands of infections and thousands more deaths in the United States and Europe is simply staggering.

And Thailand is not the only example.
Taiwan had very few deaths and Vietnam had none. In all three cases, it was not decisive that authoritarian leaders issued orders from above. In fact, in the early phase the Thai military regime made mistakes. What made the difference was not only the use of face masks — which among Thais nonetheless reached 95 per cent, compared to 15 per cent in the United Kingdom and 48 per cent in the United States. What was decisive in stabilising the situation and curbing the spread of the virus was the close collaboration between public health authorities and civil society. The role of the government and the impact of the emergency decree it issued can be considered superfluous.

"Neoliberalism is dying." You argue that the 2008–10 crisis was proof of this, and now, just a decade later, so is the pandemic. How can we convince people of the truth of this statement?
The pandemic has upended a world that had not yet recovered from the global financial crisis of 2008. Before it struck, there was already mass disillusionment towards the United States government, which had chosen to bail out the big banks rather than bankrupt homeowners. Since 2008, moreover, the US has maintained very high levels of unemployment due to a neoliberal ideology rooted in resistance to public spending. Southern and Eastern Europe were caught in the grip of austerity programmes designed to squeeze out of the population the funds needed to repay European public institutions and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which had bailed out German and French banks. Over the past decade the global economy has entered a state of "secular stagnation", as the IMF itself has admitted. When the pandemic struck, economies already under strain ground to a halt. In the major economies, GDP fell by between 4 per cent and 7 percentage points in the first quarter of this year alone — the largest decline in ten years. The most optimistic forecasters estimate a drop in global gross domestic product (GDP) of at least 6 per cent for 2020. Millions of individuals will be thrown into the ranks of the unemployed; in the US, for example, nearly 30 per cent of the workforce.

How are governments responding?
Governments have been forced to go further than their responses to the 2008 financial crisis, intervening on a large scale with fiscal stimulus programmes to avert economic catastrophe and the ensuing political apocalypse. The contrast between the anaemic responses of 2008–10 and the vigorous — if still limited — reaction to the pandemic has opened people's eyes. It has shown what is possible when government sets aside market-based solutions and opts for decisive action. In short, the credibility of neoliberal thinking and its policies, already shattered ten years ago, has been weakened still further by the pandemic. The only question now is whether the death of neoliberalism will be swift or slow, as economist Dani Rodrik has put it.

In Italy, after two months of the strictest lockdown, an enormous economic crisis is forecast. Why is our system so fragile? Until the 1980s, everything used to shut down in summer — factories, services, shops…
The economies of the global North and South are more fragile today than they were in the 1970s and 1980s, for three reasons. The first: the globalisation of production has led to the de-industrialisation of many economies in the North and the transfer of labour-intensive processes to the South, where wages are far lower. Global supply chains have replaced domestic production, in both industry and agriculture. These chains may appear efficient, but in reality they are very fragile, susceptible to disruptions caused by wars, natural disasters and pandemics. When the coronavirus struck, Chinese production lines shut down, causing severe shortages of essential goods — including face masks and other protective equipment — in many countries. Right now, meanwhile, we are witnessing the disruption of global food distribution chains, with a very real possibility that some parts of the world will face hunger in the coming months.

And the other two reasons?
The second reason: neoliberal policies have exacerbated consumption everywhere, and we all know that consumption is the fuel of demand. In the North, where people are emerging from mass indebtedness, wages have been frozen at the same level for twenty years. In 2008, taking out a loan was no longer simply an option — you risked losing your home and falling into poverty. At the same time, the policies adopted to increase the profit rate have led to ever-growing inequality.

Finally, the third reason. With industry stagnant, investment was channelled into finance, which through speculation obtained immense profits. Although it contributes only 5 to 10 per cent of GDP, the US financial sector has accounted for around 40 per cent of all corporate profits. However, investing in finance does not create new value. Profit comes from speculation or inflated prices. But if these happen to collapse, the crisis arrives, and at its peaks a sharp recession of the real productive economy occurs.

How can we recover?
Looking ahead, recovery will be very difficult. The only sustainable recovery possible depends on a radical abandonment of neoliberal principles and a substantial increase in state intervention. The question is: will state intervention be progressive and move in the direction of socialism, or repressive and inclined towards fascism?

You have identified three possible scenarios after the pandemic. One of them includes deglobalisation. What does it consist of?
I see three possible paths out of the current crisis. The first is the restoration of neoliberal policies, which, however, is the most unlikely. People will no longer accept them, since they have produced nothing but inequality. The second is what I have just described as progressive. That is, extensive state intervention within a more democratic context of economic decision-making, greater popular empowerment and equality, and the adoption of policies that are beneficial for the climate.

In recent years, various exciting paradigms have been proposed, such as degrowth, food sovereignty and deglobalisation. I have been associated with the latter. Deglobalisation means that the pivot of the economy is domestic demand generated by egalitarian policies. The aim is to protect industry, agriculture and jobs from the offshoring driven by an out-of-control import system. The third path, unfortunately, is the fascist one. State intervention in the economy takes place within a political system that adopts the left's social welfare measures, but reserves them solely for white people or the "right" ethnic stock. Minorities and migrants become scapegoats to be blamed for popular discontent and social disorder. The struggle to replace agonising neoliberalism is between progressives and fascists.

You observe mass psychology closely in order to understand social phenomena. What do you see right now?
In 2008 people were shaken by the financial crisis, but they were coming from twenty years of relatively smooth sailing. Even if beneath the calm surface inequalities were growing, they were not so alienated from the capitalist and neoliberal system. Now it is different. In the North, people are deeply impatient. And in the South, the continuous structural adjustments imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which began in the 1970s, have left very few people with any hope of development. On top of that, they have completely extinguished the vibrant popular sentiment that had been created in the era of decolonisation, between the 1950s and the 1970s.

There are fears that the far right, in this dialectic, will gain the upper hand. You draw parallels with the 1930s. Which ones, in particular? How can we avert a repressive revival?
Unfortunately, the far right is in a better position to exploit popular discontent. This is because, even before the pandemic, its parties had carefully cherry-picked certain anti-liberal programmes and elements from the independent left. For example, the critique of globalisation, the expansion of state welfare, a more significant role for the state in the economy — but packaging everything within a right-wing "gestalt" (form or representation, ed.). In Europe, some radical right parties — such as Marine Le Pen's Front national, the Danish People's Party, the Freedom Party in Austria, Viktor Orbán's Fidesz in Hungary — have abandoned certain neoliberal principles, such as liberalisation and tax cuts.

They now claim to be in favour of state welfare and of protecting the economy from international commitments. However, they think only of the good of those with "the right skin colour", "the right culture", "the right ethnic stock", "the right religion". In practice, this is the old national socialism — inclusive along class lines, but discriminatory in terms of race and culture. Today, a seasoned practitioner of this formula is Donald Trump, who unexpectedly won the 2016 election. In these difficult times, his far right has managed to win over large sections of the working class.

And the far right in Asia?
Two leaders have emerged in the Global South and have highlighted aspects of far-right dynamics more sharply than in the North. I am referring to the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, and the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi. Both are very popular because they have known how to exploit people's dissatisfaction with the failures of liberal democracy, in particular the gap between its promises of equity and the reality of deep inequalities and poverty. These charismatic individuals have convinced their respective citizenries that anti-liberal programmes are the solution to social ills. We are witnessing the paradox in which free elections resoundingly confirm them in power and lead to a greater concentration of power in their hands.

Duterte is against the democratic foundation of due process, and Modi attacks the secular nature of the state.
Neither of them will keep their promises, and their economic policies will cause major problems, as is already happening as a result of the demonetisation launched by Modi. Yet they enjoy a large majority. In this sense, democracy is reinforcing authoritarianism. Why such cross-class success? A central reason is their charisma, even though on the left we are sceptical or even hostile towards this type of explanation. Charisma is a social relationship between those who lead and those who are led. We must try to understand it. Otherwise, we will never understand why, in the midst of the heaviest bombing, the majority of Germans — including the young Günter Grass (who would later become social democrats) — remained loyal to Hitler.

So, how can the left reconnect with people?
We must acknowledge that, despite having many good ideas about how to change the world, we have not been able to translate them into a critical mass on the ground. The right has learnt from the left, and perhaps the latter should seek lessons in its adversaries' successes. History moves according to a complex dialectic. Unexpected developments often occur that generate opportunities for those brave enough to seize them — those who think outside the box and ride the tiger on its unpredictable charge to power. I believe there are many such people on the left among the new generations.

The left must connect with reality when it has the power to restructure society, but it must also reconsider the role of emotions in politics, towards which it has always been — with some reason — suspicious, even rigid. Can the left find a compromise between its concept of the rational voter or citizen, and its values? When Antonio Gramsci said "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will", I believe that is precisely what he meant. However, perhaps the lesson the left must learn most quickly is that history does not forgive and rarely tolerates those who make the same mistakes twice. If progressives were to allow already discredited social democrats, in the style of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to strike a new pact with neoliberalism, the consequences could be fatal.