The Economic and Political Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 epidemic has triggered a twin (health and economic crisis). The first is caused by the “metabolic rift” (capitalism’s uncontrollable and insatiable commodification of nature) that leads to the modern “emerging epidemics” of zoonoses. The economic crisis was already simmering but lockdowns triggered and aggravated its eruption. Furthermore, it argues that socialism is better equipped to confront health crises due to its superior state economic capacity, better co-ordination mechanisms and focus on the well-being of the labouring classes’ majority of society. Additionally, this commentary explains that this twin crisis will aggravate the current state of intra-imperialist conflicts and will intensify the process of “de-globalisation.” Confronting this situation the Left and the Communist movement should not become subservient to intra-bourgeois conflicts (as anti-neoliberalism argues) but pursue class politics against capitalism and at the same time fight so as the burden of the crisis is paid by capital and not labour.

KEYWORDS:

• Economic crisis
• metabolic rift
• de-globalisation
• class politics
• COVID-19

Notes on Contributor

Stavros Mavroudeas is currently Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Social Policy of Panteion University. He was previously Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Economics of the University of Macedonia. His teaching and research fields include political economy, macroeconomics, history of economic thought, labour economics, economic growth and development economics, Greek economy. He has authored several books in English and in Greek, such as The Limits of Regulation (2012, Edward Elgar), Greek Capitalism in Crisis—Marxist Analyses (2014, Routledge) and also many chapters in collective volumes. His journal publications include “Development and Crisis—The Turbulent Course of Greek Capitalism” (International Critical Thought, vol. 3, no. 3, 2013), “Regulation Theory: The Road from Creative Marxism to Post-Modern Disintegration” (Science & Society, vol. 63, no. 3, 1999), “Is Cartelier’s Monetary Approach a Convincing Alternative to the Labour Theory of Value? A Comment” (Economic Thought, vol. 6, no. 2, 2017), etc. He is a founding member of the Greek Association of Political Economy and served in its board as Secretary (2009–2013) and President (2018–2020).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See US NBER’s report at https://www.nber.org/cycles/june2020.html.