A bit of a ramble...
Having thought about it some more, I’ve been reconsidering and am now very undecided about what is the best strategy for coping with Covid 19.
I’m mindful of the fact that we now, sadly, live in a globalised capitalist world, and that economic shutdowns in wealthy countries will be disastrous for the global south. Predictions are
not good.
Obviously that global capitalist system was already
disastrous for those poor countries, pre Covid; mass
exploitation, poverty, hunger, etc. But tragically it is what it is for now, and they are to an extent reliant on (enslaved to) the wealthy north; and with the north shut down, aren’t they even more at risk? With their land taken by western agribusiness etc, they're barely even able to grow their own food?
I guess what all wealthy nations should’ve done is what China, South Korea, etc, did - in terms of mass testing and containment - thus preventing deaths AND keeping the economy going. But thanks to neoliberalism diminishing our states, we don’t really have that capacity, nor leaders who’re capable of such competent leadership and state intervention - it goes against their entire ideology. (Side note: the surveillance that that entails does scare me somewhat, particularly given the
nature of our authorities, who are likely to exploit it).
Our focus needs to not just be on our own societies in the global north, (where of course there is also huge poverty and hunger - victims of neoliberal globalisation are in the north as well as the south), but also and perhaps most importantly we need to focus on the wellbeing of those in the exploited south; especially given that the south is vulnerable and suffering from hunger and poverty precisely because of the north’s corporate imperialism; forcing them into the global market (so that the corporations can plunder them and their resources), leaving them with a severe lack of independence and capability to manage crises - just as we in the north now are, to a much lesser extent.
Of course, people like Trump and Johnson are not motivated by anything other than ensuring that the exploitative global system can continue. But perhaps that is actually a less destructive option overall than shutting everything down? Perhaps, for the sake of the south, the least bad option is to keep the global economy going, even if that means we have to suffer more Covid fatalities in the north?
I guess whatever happens, we should hope that this crisis will
reverse globalisation, and lead to independence/social movements in the south, (and the north).
Also - Trump, Johnson and their ilk
will of course want to use the crisis as an opportunity to make the system even more privatized and exploitative - watch The Shock Doctrine. But are the shutdowns actually helping to enable that, as small businesses struggle to survive and get eaten up by the corporations? Perhaps this could be avoided with appropriate government intervention on the side of those small businesses, but as I say, sadly we do not have the kind of governments that are going to do that.
We should be mindful that the huge economic crisis brought on by these lockdowns will make for ripe conditions for a further rise of fascism, as Trump, Johnson, inevitably handle it in such a way that will lead to greater inequality and anger. Ideally it should lead to a rise in left radicalism as well, but as has been demonstrated in recent years, the left has been decimated by decades of neoliberalism, and attempts to reorganize have so far failed to beat the right, (largely thanks to the 'centrist' establishment equating the two).
I just thought I'd put down in writing some of the things running through my head right now. I guess realistically, it seems to me that our options now are either to let hundreds of thousands (mostly) elderly people die in the global north, or to let millions more die of hunger in the global south, and risk a rise in right-wing extremism in the north.
The damage that the economic depression will do to the global south is as a result of capitalism/globalization; not as a result of the virus itself. I don't really know what the answer is in the short term, as the options are all terrible, but long term, we need to stop enslaving and exploiting poor countries so that they are under-developed and dependent on exports to the rich countries. We need to re-localize, and we need cooperation, not exploitation; this will require a political revolution to change the system of perpetual growth and profit for greedy corporations. We need people power.
.....
And what if it takes years for a vaccine? It may well do. Lockdown in places like the UK was probably important to flatten the curve, but is containment via testing and tracing realistic? I doubt it, (even if we had a well functioning and resourced state). Perhaps the
Swedish model is the best compromise strategy going forward...?
