The reviewer was able to make use of the three author’s expertise in her own
socio-economic analysis of the Corona lockdown period 2020–2022, a relatively
short, but more influential historical moment (Komlosy 2022). The lockdowns,
contact and movement restrictions came as a shock wave, disrupting social and
economic relations by far-reaching closures of the economy, trade, education,
travel, cultural and sport events, etc. Against all statistical evidence, governments,
international health organizations and media constructed a health crisis, turning a
fairly curable mass disease with a low mortality risk into a high mortality pan-
demic. The Corona moment served as a catalyst. It accelerated the implementation
of the MANBRIC sectors: digitalization and remote services opened a way for
people to take part in social interaction without personal contacts; health products
like tests and vaccines were decreed under compulsion as well as subsidized by
governments; control and tracking apps gained grounds as did the use of body
monitoring to improve lifestyle and health status (Chap. 14).
The Corona moment as a single historical moment served as a prism, in
which elements of the ongoing cybernetic transformation showed up in a con-
densed form. To interpret them beyond the daily grievances, Grinin, Grinin and
Korotayev provide the long-range, wide-angle explanatory framework of cyclical
sectoral renewal and shift in production principles. It is possible that the predicted
transformations toward a cybernetic society would have proceeded, without the
accelerating impact of the Corona regimes. History takes its course, like rivers
shape their beds. Maybe. Such a perspective does not take into account that Big
History is mirrored in Small History. Only if we consider long-term and short-term,
event and structure, we can approach the driving forces of history. Therefore, we
can assume, as Grinin, Grinin and Korotayev acknowledge in Chap. 4 as well as
in previous works (2021), that the disruptive effect of the Corona management
accelerated the speeding-up of the Cybernetic Revolution.
Once events are taken seriously, we have to consider unintended consequences,
however. In the case of Corona, not only did the measurements pave the way for
the acceptance of new health and control regimes, which are at the heart of MAN-
BRIC convergence and the introduction of self-regulating systems of surveillance,
health monitoring and control. They also provoked a strong popular sentiment
against data expropriation and digital surveillance, giving rise to a mass move-
ment for human self-determination and sovereign conduct of life. This sentiment
might change the course, or pace of the cybernetic transformation; it might as
well contribute to being more attentive vis-à-vis the authors’ appeal to be vigilant
against the dangers of authoritarian takeovers of the cybernetic society.
January 2024 Prof. Andrea Komlosy
University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria
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