JOEL KOTKIN: The societal effects of the pandemic will remain with us.

Covid-19 was a major disrupter of virtually everything, but it also accelerated many things that were already in play. From the growth of the tech oligarchy to the dispersion of population to suburbs and to smaller cities, to a wide range of political impacts, it will continue to be felt here and around the world. . . .

The recent pandemic has been far less lethal, but it has reshaped our economy and society. It has to date largely favored big companies, which could deploy far greater resources and make the necessary transition to social distancing and on-line ordering, and the rich, who could cluster in their big homes and fly on private jets. Big Pharma companies have made lucrative profits with vaccine revenue that added an estimated $26 billion to their bottom lines by the end of 2021.

But the biggest initial winners were top digital companies —Amazon, Apple, Tencent, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Ant, Netflix, Hulu—all feasting on record profits in both 2020 and 2021. Leftist author Naomi Klein has dubbed this tech ascendancy “the Screen New Deal,” which seeks to create a “permanent and profitable no-touch future.” In contrast, the pandemic ravaged Main Street, eliminating over 100,000 more businesses than would occur normally, notes the Federal Reserve.

Millions of surviving businesses now increasingly have to rely for services and products via what analyst Mike Lind calls “toll booth” companies like Google and Amazon, which charge a fee for transactions once performed by small business owners. Even today, according to an Alignable.com survey, only 16 percent of small business owners – who have been particularly hard hit by inflation and labor shortages—feel the government has done much to help them. Martin Kulldorff, a professor at Harvard Medical School, summarized the impact: “Lockdowns have protected the laptop class of young low-risk journalists, scientists, teachers, politicians and lawyers, while throwing children, the working class and high-risk older people under the bus.”

Yep. Related: America’s elites are waging class war on workers and small biz.

Also: The rich and powerful thrived as the rest of us suffered in the year of lockdowns.