NEWS
In our latest blog, Dr Lara Gruhn (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Zürich) reflects back on the Covid-19 crisis in Switzerland and considers the analytical advantages of developing an expansive definition of redistribution.
The term ‘redistribution’ tends to evoke the welfare state and its instruments, such as taxes, old-age insurance, and other social policy measures that affect income or wealth distribution. Thomas Piketty is one of the central figures of this redistribution discourse. In this reading, redistribution is primarily associated with the state. Less thought is given to the fact that redistribution can consist of civil society practices that exist alongside and apart from the state. During the first days of the Covid-19 crisis in Switzerland different types of ‘redistribution’ took place simultaneously.
When the Swiss federal council announced the national lockdown on 16 March 2020, the state supported those who were economically affected by it. This was to be achieved primarily by means of short-time work and interest-free and (to a large extent) government-guaranteed loans to ensure liquidity for companies and businesses. The federal government did not directly distribute taxpayers’ money. Instead, it was transacted through the social insurance systems (short-time work, unemployment benefits) and banks (emergency loans). In this sense, redistribution was barely questioned even by market-oriented and regulation-averse liberal politicians. In the news media, the state (and its various actors) was held responsible for averting an ‘economic collapse’ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung 19.03.2020).
Through such policy instruments, funds were redistributed by the state and its social security funds. However, there were countless privately organized initiatives during the same period: neighborhood help groups, fundraising, food distributions and crowdfunding initiatives emerged. The question that arises is whether they also practiced redistribution. The rhetoric and motivation of such initiatives was fed by the assumption that the virus can only be defeated together. ‘Together against Corona!’ was the slogan of hilf-jetzt.ch, one of the many online platforms that emerged and offered to bring together those who were seeking and offering aid. Community orientation and solidarity were seen as the solution to overcoming the crisis; the basic attitude of ‘showing solidarity’, ‘wanting to help’, ‘serving society’ or ‘making a contribution’ dominated. Thus, the Covid-19 crisis also made visible a less state centered means of redistribution, one that was organized through organizations and private parties. While it could be argued that this was a reaction to gaps in the social welfare net and a lack of state aid, in Switzerland it emerges from the understanding that everyone can and should ‘pay into’ society. Mutual help – and with it the redistribution of resources (money, time, goods) – was seen as self-evident for a functioning society.
The privately organized initiatives during Covid-19 could scientifically be assigned to Karl Polanyi’s understanding of ‘reciprocity’. From an ethnographic perspective, however, what Polanyi calls reciprocity can also be understood as a form of redistribution. This is because it can be assumed that certain mechanisms exist in reciprocal practices to ensure a certain equality or distributive justice. In his book Stone Age Economics the cultural anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, for example, emphasized the social meaning and symbolism of redistribution and its role in establishing social relations and maintaining social cohesion. From this viewpoint, redistribution should be seen as a process of distributing resources within a social group or community. In the contemporary world, then, gifts, donations, or institutions such as food banks, clothing exchanges or crowdfunding can also be seen as forms of redistribution.
With these examples I want to show that both the overtly political, state-focused view and a more holistic, ethnographic view of redistribution hold great potential for our project; taking both into account, different varieties and forms of redistribution – and their implications – can be explored. We can ask how they condition, influence and complement each other. What rules do the different varieties of redistribution follow? What linguistic, visual, narrative, and symbolic framings play a role? How are these different forms of redistribution understood, named, and delimited by the participants themselves? These analytical questions lead us to the rules and norms of redistribution that have been discussed widely and which relate to the question of who should be responsible for what in a society and how should contributions and the relationship between state and civil society be organized. If we pay attention to the simultaneity of different redistribution practices, we can make statements about how they interact with each other and what reciprocities they generate. This also allows us to look at imaginaries; that is, shared ideas of what redistribution should or must be.