The Merchants of Menace Gifted Man 'Just in Time' Now unfolds this story Told here in rhyme. Man built their systems They worked like a clock On fast-shifting sands Not old fashioned rock. Then came the day The Earth did it shake Foundations now fragments Man's houses did break. The Merchants of Menace Loud laughed at the game As Man rushed for the exit Found hubris not fame. Inject now a plague For they have nothing in store So they make heroes of victims And science they implore. Have them hide in their homes Fill them with fear Stream them statistics So the streets remain clear. Watch them make space From each hospital bed Get themselves ready For that they dread. But some they eject Carry seeds most dire Spreading and sprouting New sources of fire. As they march the virus Into the elders' camp Deaf to the protests Tramp, tramp, tramp. The Merchants of Menace Shake heads in despair Man displaces the blame Declare critics unfair. For leaders set rules All must obey It's not a request In homes they must stay. But such rules To not all did apply No one would notice As to places they fly. Although 'the Science' Informed what they do They made rules for me But not for you. The Merchants of Menace Had made Man so lean But with no resilience To such futures unseen.
About
A play on the Merchant of Venice this satirical verse was written in June 2020 during one of the peaks in the Covid-19 pandemic. A potential performance piece it’s now just really a piece of social commentary on how our modern day digital and organisational systems may well be ‘efficient’ but that efficiency can have an existential cost when the unexpected happens and the systems prove to have little resilience. Ironically, some ‘inefficency’ is necessary for resilience. The current situation in Ukraine demonstrates just how fragile energy, food and defence systems can become. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted how rapidly apparently ‘efficient’ global production and distribution systems can fail. The ‘just in time’ model of production with its assumptions about a seamless flow of matériel from disparate sources into whatever production facility has transformed into a ‘perhaps later’ model as components fail to arrive on time. The verse also reminds us about the cost of that fatal decision, literally, to clear hospital beds and discharge untested patients into nursing homes but such 100% ‘efficiency’ of decision making is easier in hindsight when the consequences of such decisions are clear. The initial absence of protective equipment for hospital and nursing home staff, however, was a scandal which should not be forgotten or repeated.