Pandemic capitalism

Covid-19 und die sozialen Folgen

While the economic effects (global recession) and the political upheavals (protest against strong infection control measures such as a lockdown) received great public attention, the social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have remained somewhat unexposed. It wasn’t just that the problem of inequality in the exceptional pandemic situation become visible as if under a magnifying glass. In fact, the pandemic itself, the economic crisis it triggered and the imbalance in the distribution of state financial aid for companies in most countries made it even worse. Despite all the assertions that they were “classless” societies with assured prosperity for all of their members, a growing part of the population, even in countries with relatively high living and social standards, could not manage even for a few weeks with their regular income diminished.

From “Rhenish” to swinish capitalism

Shortly after the unification of the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) and the GDR (German Democratic Republic), the French economist Michel Albert referred to Germany, together with the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries and Japan, “Rhenish capitalism” and contrasted it with the Anglo-Saxon or US-American economic model. In his 1991 book Capitalisme contre Capitalisme Albert wrote that the ultimate collapse of communism had made the difference between the two models really clear: “The neo-American is based on individual success and quick financial gain. The Rhenish has its centre in Germany and is very similar to the Japanese. Like this one, it emphasises collective success, consensus and long-term forward thinking.”

Although the Rhineland model was fairer and more efficient, the ultra-liberal, less egalitarian model of US capitalism, would spread worldwide, due to the development of modern information and communication technologies and the neoliberal globalisation of the financial sector, Albert predicted at the time. In fact, in the last few decades – to express it in a journalistic way – there has been a change from “Rhenish” to “offensive” capitalism. The latter is an economic and social system that tolerates brutal exploitation, drastic disenfranchisement of employees, systematic wage and social dumping, unscrupulous donkey work and mass cruelty to animals as well as profit maximisation by a small group of multimillionaires and billionaires who work closely with exponents of the political and governmental system, and practically sets no limits.

This has never been more evident than during the Covid-19 pandemic: More than 1,400 employees at Europe’s largest meat factory, in which tens of thousands of pigs are slaughtered, butchered and processed every day, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in June 2020. This included a particularly large number of Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian contract workers who were suffering from scandalous working and living conditions. All of the people working at the Tönnies meat company headquarters in Rheda-Wiedenbrück at the time, had to go into quarantine along with their families, because there were fears that the virus would spread to the general population.

Epidemics as social equalisers?

Epidemics have often contributed to reducing inequality in the past, if only for a period of time. This happened, for example, with the medieval plague, which killed countless people of all classes in Europe from 1347 onwards. The main reason for this was the decline in food, land and property prices (due to a lack of buyers) on the one hand and the rise in wages (due to a lack of workers and a stronger negotiating position with the employers by the remaining people) on the other.

What Covid-19 has in common with the bacterial epidemics that plagued Europe in the 19th century – cholera, tuberculosis and typhoid, is that it affects the most immunocompromised and poorest. The main victims of such pandemics are the poor in society. Research from the USA shows that the Afro-American minority is particularly hard hit by Covid-19 disease, and in Brazil the virus has mainly taken hold in the favelas, where those who make the life of the wealthy and the rich easier and better through their mostly poorly paid services live.

At first glance, it looks like everyone is the same before a virus. With regard to the infectiousness of coronaviruses, this is absolutely true, but not with respect to vulnerability and infection risks of different population groups. The Covid-19 pandemic hit everyone on earth, but by no means hit everyone equally. Instead, they were affected in very different ways depending on their working conditions, living conditions and state of health. Because of the lower life expectancy of the poor, even in affluent, if not wealthy societies, the basic cynical rule applies: those who are poor, will die sooner. The following applied during the corona pandemic: those who are poor, are more likely to die. Because social-status related pre-existing illnesses such as obesity, asthma or diabetes mellitus, catastrophic working conditions as well as cramped and hygienically questionable living conditions, all increase the risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 and a more severe course of Covid-19 disease.

So it is not the virus itself that is unjust, but a class society whose members are unequally affected. Less can be said of a social equaliser than of an “inequality virus”. Because SARS-CoV-2 did not cause the gap between rich and poor, nor was the new type of coronavirus responsible for the general social conditions it encountered. Covid-19 only made existing conflicting interests stand out more clearly, while they were intensified during every lockdown and almost all government “rescue packages” for the economy. It is not the virus that is anti-social, but a rich society that does not protect its poor members enough from infection and the economic upheavals of the pandemic. Neoliberalism acts as a social rift – an economic theory, social philosophy and civil political religion that considers inequality to be productive and increases prosperity.