The year 2020 exposed how dependent economic activity was on the stability of its natural environment. A tiny virus mutation in a microbe could threaten the entire world’s economy. It also exposed how in extremis, the entire monetary and financial system could be directed toward supporting markets and livelihoods, thus forcing the question of who was supported and how. Both shocks tore down partitions that were fundamental to the political economy of the last half century, lines that divided the economy from nature, economics from social policy and from politics per se.
