{"id":12719,"date":"2021-11-07T04:05:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-07T12:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=12719"},"modified":"2021-11-09T04:05:25","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T12:05:25","slug":"what-the-14th-century-plague-tells-us-about-how-covid-will-change-politics-politico-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=12719","title":{"rendered":"“What the 14th Century Plague Tells Us About How Covid Will Change Politics”, Politico Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel W. Gingerich<\/span>\u00a0and Jan P. Vogler, History Dept.,\u00a0<\/span>

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Regions hit hardest by the Black Death in Europe looked more democratic centuries later. What does that mean for society coming out of this pandemic?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Great Plague of London artwork by William Blake, from 1779, depicts suffering from the bubonic plague. | Fine Art Images\/Heritage Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Nearly 700 years ago, Europe experienced the single most devastating pandemic in recorded human history. Within a timespan of roughly four years (1347\u20131351), an outbreak of plague tread an awful path across most of the continent, claiming the lives of about half of the population. Economic activities like mining and metallurgy<\/a> came to a complete stop. In some cases, villages constructed around marginal agricultural lands were entirely abandoned, to be reclaimed by the forests. Chroniclers at the time referred to the event as the \u201cGreat Mortality\u201d \u2014 today we know it as the Black Death.<\/p>\n

Yet the legacy of the Black Death goes well beyond human suffering. The unparalleled pandemic did not just devastate the population in the areas it hit the hardest; it killed off entire social and economic institutions \u2014 especially ones that had, up until that point, restricted human freedom and stifled prosperity.<\/p>\n

In recently published research<\/a>, we trace out how the regions that experienced the worst mortality and the most extensive destruction began to look different from those that had fared better. In regions with the highest death toll, the power and social standing of workers went up precipitously, while exploitative labor practices crumbled. As a consequence, government, particularly at the local level, became significantly more democratic and inclusive \u2014 effects that could still be seen centuries later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Today, we may be witnessing the early stages of a similar development. <\/b>The recent surge in workers quitting low wage jobs<\/a>, especially in the leisure and hospitality industries, has left employers scrambling to fill empty positions. Some suggest that the Covid pandemic and its fallout have, at least in the short run, augmented the bargaining power of labor<\/a>. While the available evidence on this point is mixed<\/a> (there has been only a modest increase in inflation-adjusted wage rates and little change to overall levels of inequality), the history of the Black Death suggests <\/b>that pandemic-driven shifts in the labor supply can have important and long-lasting economic and political ramifications.<\/p>\n

How precisely did the Black Death have this kind of impact? Medieval medicine understood neither how the plague spread nor how it could be treated. Today we know that plague is primarily transmitted to humans by infected rat fleas, but doctors in the 14th century commonly attributed the disease to poison in the air<\/a>. Easily treated by antibiotics today, treatments at the time consisted of ineffective and potentially damaging procedures such as bloodletting. If allowed to take its course, plague has extremely high mortality \u2014 roughly 60 percent-70<\/a> percent of afflicted individuals will succumb to the disease. So when the plague entered Europe via trading routes with Central Asia, the result was a calamity of unfathomable magnitude.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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