Coronavirus or a new synonym for creative destruction

Sankar Ray

The Coronavirus scare may begin the beginning of the end of history says Lee Jones, reader in international politics at Queen Mary, University of London. It was ‘presciently’ coined by the ‘American pundit Francis Fukuyama in 1989 after the collapse of Berlin Wall and demise of Soviet Union. He assumed the burial of ‘Marxism’ and ideas of Marx for transformation of a class-split world into an egalitarian world – ‘association of free and equal individuals’. But Fukuyama was proved false within two decades after the ‘sub-prime debt crisis’ in 2008 when the hitherto- unassailable Friedmanian monetary economics –dialogical weapon of neo-liberal finance capital collapsed. Suddenly, the large book shops in the West saw large queues for Marx’s ‘Capital: Critique of Political Economy’. But the Coronavirus pandemic – Coronakrach, the caption of a thought-provoking essay by Frédéric Lordon in Le Monde diplomatique on 11 March – may kill off ‘the neoliberal order’ that the Left has been dreaming off. ‘The ‘free market’ – supposed home to titans of industry and rugged venture capitalists’ faces the struggle for existence. The short-lived virus threatens investors to ‘dissolve into hysteria. The fundamental irrationality of markets is exposed as stocks swing wildly from one hour to the next. Asthmatic grandmothers display greater resolve’, Jones states succinctly. His expectation about the Left is bleak, but still looks up to them. ‘It remains to be seen whether the Left can rise to the historical moment’. But the Left –especially the ‘official Marxist parties and their mutated entities to bypass the anathema towards ‘totatalitarian communism’ (deformation of Marx’s thoughts) is as frail as the Shakespearean ‘frailty’ to seize the grand opportunity to romp home. He seems hopeful the reformed Left, despite suicidal ostracization of social democrats by the hitherto by Leninist-Stalinist Left. The Left, mainly by the traditional strain is   ‘blindsided, highly disoriented. “In Britain’s general election last December, the Labour Party ran on a platform promising adherence to fiscal rules which the Conservative government has torn up”, he stated bluntly. Small wonder, the Labour Party under James Corbyn remains increasingly obsessed with ‘resistance,’ and instinctively opposed to whatever the Right does while lacking any truly systematic alternative. 

The new reality is tilting heavily against the neo-liberals, thanks to the aggression by the Covid 19 that wreaks ‘havoc on societies already devastated by a decade of EU-enforced austerity. Between 2011-18, the EU told member-states cut healthcare spending or outsource services 63 times.  The humanitarian disaster unfolding in northern Italy – where incomes have stagnated for two decades and Coronavirus deaths already exceed China’s – testifies to the political elite’s abandonment of their historic responsibility of providing security to the citizenry. Spain is not far behind. Greece, whose healthcare system has crumbled amid the social crisis caused by Euro-austerity, will surely follow’, the British academic argues. neoliberal heartlands – Britain and the USA witness the crumbling of the neoliberal system that fails to respond to the public health emergency. The governments have jettisoned policies, as never before, as if these are undesirable - ‘socialist’ or ‘communist.’  

The neoliberal orthodoxy is osmotically rejected at breath-taking speed and stupefying as it may seem, ‘left-wing ideas, previous considered beyond the pale’, are adopted by right-wing governments. Coronavirus is destined to be the final nail in its coffin.

Jones explained the obstinacy of the neoliberal British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for trying to transplant the ‘emerging post-Thatcherite transformation before the Covid-19 crisis, which was why the Premier ousted the Randian deficit hawk Sajid Javid from the post of Chancellor of Exchequer. The latter wanted a quasi-Keynesian budget through increased public spending, investment in infrastructure and a £30bn stimulus. But, not surprisingly,  the wealthy and propertied class benefited by £350bn in loan guarantees and grants for business and mortgage holidays , with subsequent rent holiday and an extraordinary pledge to pay 80 percent of wages up to £2,500, initially for three months but ultimately for as long as necessary, plus an extra £7bn in welfare spending. Javid successor, British Indian Rishi Sunak, Bojo’s sidekick “pledged ‘unlimited sums’ of interest-free loans. The total sum, the Bank of England, pledged is 15 percent of Britain’s gross domestic product.

Jones lashed out at the People’s Republic of China and its ‘authoritarian, brutal and ugly’ communist regime. “Contrary to western imaginaries”, he stresses, “its governance regime is also dysfunctional, riven by internal competition and bureaucratic dislocation – which impeded full recognition of the COVID -19 outbreak and its management. Nonetheless, the regime eventually managed to contain the virus, and many western liberals and leftists now demand Chinese-style lockdowns”. Pathetically true, the Indian political parties from the Fascist BJP to the Stalinist CPI(M), from the post-Nehruvian Congress to exemplarily populist-in action Aam Admi Party are unquestioningly defenders of lockdown which is by nature authoritarian. They are not interested to listen to the voice of dissent, quantitatively in the minority, but qualitatively formidable. The logic of the dissent is lucidly penned by the British academic about what he considers as ‘the most terrible question posed by the pandemic. Presenting the injured conscience of fiercely libertarian he slapped the unabashed apologists of lockdown crossing political lines. “How can democracy function when the citizenry cannot? A new order is being improvised primarily by right-wing politicians, while the citizens are stuck indoors, hoarding toilet paper and watching Netflix. Curbing the disease requires social distancing, but shaping the future requires collective action. World War Two birthed an order that favoured workers because they were well-organised through unions and parties. Today, the best our enfeebled unions and social-democratic parties seem to hope for is a new corporatism, which is in fact being created by the Right for its own purposes.” 

Here in India, the doctors’ community (exceptions apart) collectively campaign for the lockdown, speaking from the high horse with a pistol, directed at political leaders, intellectuals, academics and commentators on the ground. These doctors mostly thrive on roaring practice, thanks to the ‘public private participation’ ( actually hegemony of neo-liberal private sector), enthusiastically implemented by not only the Congress and BJP governments, but the CPI(M)-led Left Front government ( partially reversed in West Bengal under the government of All India Trinamool Congress). Rebuttal came from a few world-renowned medical scientists. Germany-born Sucharit Bhakdi, formerly professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and head of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene  there for over two decades termed lockdown as ‘grotesque, absurd and very dangerous’. In an interview to a major German TV channel, he said: “Our elderly citizens have every right to make efforts not to belong to the 2200 who daily embark on their last journey. Social contacts and social events, theatre and music, travel and holiday recreation, sports and hobbies , etc, etc, all help to prolong their stay on earth. The life expectancy of millions is being shortened. The horrifying impact on world economy threatens the existence of countless people. The consequences on medical care are profound”. Dr Bhakdi shot into fame in 1978 when he discovered the first protein that attacks and damages cells by sinking into the cell membrane and forming a pore”.

Regents professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota Michael T Osterholm opposes the lockdown policy illustratively. “Consider the effect of shutting down offices, schools, transportation systems, restaurants, hotels, stores, theatres, concert halls, sporting events and other venues indefinitely and leaving all of their workers unemployed and on the public dole. The likely result would be not just a depression but a complete economic breakdown, with countless permanently lost jobs, long before a vaccine is ready or natural immunity takes hold. The best alternative will probably entail letting those at low risk for serious disease continue to work, keep business and manufacturing operating, and ‘run’ society, while at the same time advising higher-risk individuals to protect themselves through physical distancing and ramping up our health-care capacity as aggressively as possible.”

Social distancing –assumed rationale of lockdown– is oxymoronic, if not a misnomer when it comes to controlling detained populations.  It has sparked calls for releases and pardons across the globe. Old people, housewives, children and adolescents are likely to be traumatised.

Lockdown will isolate tens of thousands who are forced to be excluded from the ‘end of history’ that awaits millions. “If there is coronakrach”, Frédéric Lordon, suggests firmly, “it will not be simply ‘Financial crash’ but general crash: everything was already on the verge of cracking, everything will crack for good.”

Tailpiece: Coronavirus infects the British premier

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Frontier
Mar 29, 2020