If there is something that the Covid-19 has struck with greater force that our morality is the system that cohabitamos and from which provides the entire social fabric of which we are part -with more or less pleasure – but part, and at the end. Faced with this, there are two possible attitudes: resign and surrender to what is to come or try to assimilate what had happened (giving us the first time, and care they need) and to move towards alternative and more encouraging.
This second position, for those who think that another way of living(us) is possible, it helps us to draw on our horizon chimeric some strokes with the form of hope to which we must cling to, among everyone, draw outline in the materiality of a new world postpandémico away from the virus more deadly than we know: capitalism.
The pandemic has placed in the spotlight popular a known problem that now, with this crisis, it has become even more evident: the system by which we are governed in most parts of the world, the so-called neoliberal capitalism, it is not only infinitely unjust and unequal, but that is unsustainable, and believe in their own autoregularización, following the logic of fictional self-regulation by the market -which has never fluctuated free, being that in the post-war period was controlled by the states, and in the past 50 years by the oligopolies- it is a fallacy to global of colossal proportions, that leads us, like sheep in front of the slaughterhouse, to a crisis like the one we are experiencing.
This virus has not only put at serious risk the health of a good part of humanity, and also of this body of social, political and economic in gradual decline since a long time ago and now is dying for his inability to cope with a situation in which the pillars on which it sits -and of those who pervert everything that touches you-seem to not only deliver a solution but exacerbate problems already existing.
To these heights of the dystopian film in which we live, the most we know there were numerous warnings prior to the Covid-19 a pandemic threat of viral nature directly related to the environmental degradation. So what is predicted to multiple reports in the last decade that alerted about the imminent appearance of a virus zoonotic, that is to say, of those who jump from animals to humans. Some of these documents revealed predictions of chilling accuracy, as the report “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” presented by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), a body dependent of the CIA, as reflected in Ramonet in a publication for Le Monde Diplomatique, pointed to the potential onset of a respiratory illness new human, highly transmissible and virulent for which there are no countermeasures appropriate, and that could become a global pandemic” and included other details like, “if there is a pandemic disease, is likely to occur in an area marked by a high density of population and a close association between humans and animals, as many areas of southern China and southeast Asia, where they are not regulated the practices of breeding of wild animals which could allow a virus to mutate and cause a zoonotic disease potentially pandemic…”. Then, if there was an obvious threat and had repeatedly pointed to the governments, and the international society, especially by the scientific community, why not established preventive measures? For two reasons radically interconnected, the first is that they decided not to invest resources in something that, for the moment, in their mandate was not happening; the second reason is the one that gives rise precisely to the logic-low effect at the first, the capitalization and the mercantile thought applied to all areas, including to your life.
The success in the global expansion of a thought based on logic mercantilist responds to the achievement of several factors, but there is a triad key authors such as Maurizio Lazzarato point: the concentration of power and the production (monopolies and oligopolies); the financialization of the global economy, and globalization as a way to impose a neo-captivating and systemically unequal.
To better understand the implications that this has, at all levels, and its interrelation with the current crisis, it is worth noting that the public spending of the welfare State (such as health-care costs, salaries and pensions, are now indexed to the financial balance, and this in turn depends upon the influence exerted by the oligopolies and monopolies that-as we know by experience of previous crises – does not have as a priority to ensure the social well-being, or even the employment or productivity, but their own profitability. Therefore, the course of the welfare State, to be able to be guaranteed, it should be adapted (usually down) to the needs of the markets. This mechanism has deteriorated badly, as it could not be of another way, the public system, especially in what refers to the healthcare system and its ability to cope with emergencies.
In addition, while from the financial economy were awarded each time the greater part of the business benefits, many workers in the real economy, which is dedicated to produce tangible goods and services needed, not only have they suffered for years almost a freeze on wages and a steady job uncertainty, but the importance that as a society we have given to these efforts has been steadily declining. Ironically, in this crisis, we have seen how many of those jobs are so fundamental that they have been rezoned as essential and those performing, along with the medical personnel are risking their own health while others took refuge from the spread in our homes.
If this crisis socio-health is serving to something positive is that we collectively stop to reflect on a series of pressing issues such as what are the social and economic activities, more important, what should be the role of the state in such a scenario, what will be our purpose and responsibility for the world in which we live, the environmental implications, and social that our way of life associated with it, and, above all, how we can dispose, once and for all, the predator global model of “growth and development”.
A model for your support, among other things, ravaged fiercely nature and biodiversity, which brings us more and more each day to the disaster climate and ecological and generates terrible impacts and environmental imbalances and social as this pandemic; it sets up a false dichotomy between health and economic development; tap and deteriorates gradually and public sectors, such as basic health, education or science; it favours the casualisation of labour and the increase in unemployment; promotes the feminization and unpaid sectors fundamental labour, which in turn, has led to a deep crisis of care in which we are immersed… and a long etcetera.
We can’t keep speaking and acting in terms related to the search of a steady economic growth at any cost, we cannot continue to think that the only world imaginable and possible comes from the hand of the term “development” if this development means to perpetuate a mechanism based on continuing to grow the economy at the expense of the planet and the people who inhabit it.
The current crisis is also a crisis of cultural and ideological values and priorities. But it is also an opportunity to promote precisely some of the more positive values latent in humanity as solidarity or mutual care, key to the transformation that we need. This instability in which we move may be precisely the one that we open the way to correct the direction. As well announcing the philosopher Byung-Chul Han: “The virus will not expire at capitalism. […] We are we, as people endowed with reason, who we need to rethink and restrict radically capitalism destructive”.
Urges to make projects that support and enhance our society towards equality, good governance, social and ecological transition, even towards degrowth and the resolution of the climate crisis, towards a new relationship of respect and empathy with nature and all beings that we coexist on this planet. To do this, we need strategies that are pointing in many directions, but under a common perspective. In addition to the pressure on the public authorities, also we can and must act from below, from the citizen action, trying to create synergies between civil society and governments. In this regard, there are plenty of potential initiatives such as networking collective in the neighborhoods and communities where we live and engage in social causes and environmental issues through volunteerism.
Sources:
Ramonet, I., 22 APR 2020. ‘?The Pandemic And The World-System’. Le monde Diplomatique.
Suárez, L.; Asuncion, M.; Rivera, L., and others. (2020). ‘Loss of nature and pandemics. A healthy planet for the health of mankind’. WWF Spain.
