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The paradox is that a billionaire will restore the dignity of the common man  

The corona pandemic offers unique opportunities to become immensely rich and  powerful. Already, one percent of the world's population owns 50 percent of the world's wealth. According to a study commissioned by the British Parliament, by 2030 that one percent will own 66 percent of the assets, and for 0.01 percent, the increase will be exponential. The corona pandemic contributes to this development.

A large part of the rest of the population will form the new class of the precariat. These are people who can never buy their own home, can only get temporary work for a low wage and if they have a mortgage or other debts, they have to act like willing slaves. Millennials in particular will experience this fate.

Alexis de Tocqueville warned of the widening gap between rich and poor. He called it a volcano on which the rich ruling class is sleeping. Over the course of history, this has always led to rebellions, which those in power tried to curb by imposing increasing restrictions and control.

To escape misery and slavery it is best to become a civil servant, scientist, teacher, doctor and nurse, IT specialist, lawyer. These are often professions where people can also work at home from a PC, except in the healthcare sector, of course. At least 50 percent of these intellectual professionals can also work from home; for blue collar workers this is only 3 percent.

The big losers in the pandemic are people who work in the hotels and restaurants, in the personal services sector such as hairdressers and beauticians, salesmen in stores and freelancers. These are also professions where the risk of infection is high. The winners are the large restaurant chains and supermarkets, multinationals such as in  pharmaceutic industry and online sales, online training and companies for cloud computing. In the full crisis, Amazon can employ hundreds of thousands of new employees. This is an example of how one's death (the small tradesmen), is bread for another.

The measures taken by the governments during the pandemic strengthen the position of IT companies and experts. The question is to what extent these measures will be maintained after the pandemic. The likelihood of maintaining governmental control and the power of internet companies is anything but imaginary.

It may well be that in the most capitalist country in the world, the United States, the above problems will be best addressed or avoided. Exactly with a president who is himself a billionaire. President Trump, according to Kimberley Strassel, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, in her book ' Resistance: How Trump haters are breaking America,' has cut central government power by a third for the benefit of states. In states, governors are better able to take local circumstances into account. From the beginning of the pandemic, an exceptional philosophy was applied, namely that the government and the private sector had to work together, with the government not getting in the way of the latter sector. Strassel calls this a brilliant idea, because businessmen are used to working as effectively as possible. In addition, the best forces in the United States can contribute to the solution of the pandemic  Many companies therefore showed their solidarity and continued to pay their employees. Bernie Sanders became irrelevant in this constructive climate.

The prominent role that American industry plays in combating the consequences of the pandemic is in stark contrast to European policy (except for the UK thanks to brexit) and cannot be approached at all by the Chinese authoritarian regime. In Europe, it is the government that makes its mark on policy. That is why the policy is characterized by the classic shortcomings: Eastern Bloc quality, no one who can be held liable, a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what, and lobbying behind the scenes by powerful lobby groups. We are in Europe for months with this sadness.

It is paradoxical that a president who is a billionaire himself pursues a policy that is a boon to American workers. This is partly because Trump, as a real estate developer, had daily contact with construction workers. He speaks their language and knows their living environment. Trump stands up better for the common man than European caviar socialists, who have deprived workers of their neighborhoods, of their traditional community, by promoting mass immigration. European socialists, without realizing it, are the useful idiots of capitalism. Leftist ideology indoctrinated journalists wallows in hate and seize every opportunity to critisize Trump .

The hatred of the left proves Trump right. He has a good chance of becoming the best president ever. A president who gave a voice to the common man and thereby saved democracy. It doesn't matter that he may seem a bit odd to a European. Trump is just a typical American of the fair and good shot. It is remarkable that against his instinct as a businessman to choose for the economy, he agreed to a lockdown. The latter may lead to high unemployment, but in the slightly longer term the United States will emerge from the recession better and sooner than any other country in the world.

juliaan van acker, april 16th 2020, author of ’The best century ever'