Global transitioning: beyond the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Picking up on Fernand Braudel’s schematic of three speeds of time, this article examines the overlapping periods of vaccine nationalism, viral globalization, and runaway capitalism: running away, meaning a lack of effective regulatory controls and lax democratic accountability. The stark contradiction between vaccine nationalism and a planetary health crisis propels this unfolding of history. The two tendencies feed one another, affording an opportunity to grasp the flow of history and the system’s fragility. This dynamic highlights the conundrum of equitable distribution of the drug on a world level. It draws attention to the imperative of replacing vaccine nationalism with a global vaccine ethics based on rectitude and social justice. This complex offers an opportunity to restructure the world in ways that are accountable, inclusive, and protective of the common good. In this way, Braudelian historicism is deployed to chart an avenue of inquiry about transitioning to a better world order.

KEYWORDS:

• Coronavirus pandemic
• vaccine nationalism
• capitalism
• globalization
• neoliberalsim
• public health

Acknowledgements

The author owes a debt of gratitude to Linda J. Yarr and this journal’s anonymous reviewers for incisive comments on earlier drafts of this paper. And thanks to Frieder G. Dengler and Julie Radomski for stellar research assistance. The author is grateful to American University for supporting this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For background on pandemics before Covid-19, see Saker et al. (2004), Scholte (2005), and Aaltola (2020).

2 Velásquez, G. (2020). For proposed guidelines on equitable treatment of Covid-19, see Abbas (2020) and Hastings Center (2020)

3 The literature on philanthropic capitalism is voluminous. Matthew Bishop is often credited with coining the term. See ‘The birth of philanthrocapitalism’ (2006) and Bishop and Green (2009). But it actually appeared earlier in Bernholz (2004). According to Bishop, the philanthropic industry assumes the characteristics of a capitalist marketplace and turns philanthropists into investors. For Bishop and Green (2009), it involves the application of business methods to philanthropy. More critical perspectives focus on the ways in which the activities of foundations align with neoliberalism. These arguments may be found in McGoey (2015) and Reich (2018). Building on this work, Burns (2019, p. 1101) deems the coupling of philanthropy and capitalism as ‘a new site for capital accumulation’.

4 The ensuing discussion of the three trends of runaway capitalism encapsulates a multi-year project that I am developing. The existing research, I find, is full of ambiguities and blind spots, but has vast potential for reinterpretation.

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Notes on contributors

James H. Mittelman

James H. Mittelman is Distinguished Research Professor and University Professor Emeritus at the School of International Service, American University. He is also Honorary Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, and was a Member of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton. He held the Pok Rafeah Chair at the National University of Malaysia, and has had teaching and research appointments in Japan, Mozambique, Uganda, and South Africa. The recipient of the International Studies Association’s 2010 Distinguished Scholar award in International Political Economy, Mittelman is the author of several books, including The globalization syndrome: Transformation and resistance (Princeton University Press), Hyperconflict: Globalization and insecurity (Stanford University Press), and Implausible dream: The world-class university and repurposing higher education (Princeton University Press). Currently, he is writing a book on transformations in capitalism.