Capitalism has been described as akin to the destruction of space by time or time-space compression (Harvey 2000). In the world of 1918 news of pandemic influenza was slow to spread and there were areas of the world that did not know, until reasonably late in the pandemic, that there was a disaster on a global scale. Substantive international travel was relatively rare. Although the ruling class had always indulged in global âgrand toursâ ships and rail provided the means of mass transit across the globe. The âSpanish Fluâ of 1918 was xenophobically and regionally named but had a truly global spread. COVID-19, similarly, is also a pandemic disease which spread globally through mass world transit but where information on the pandemic is also shared quickly through social media and constantly breaking news. Air travel brings about the rapid transit of capitalists, tourists and workers around the world and the virus spreads quickly between countries. Leisure is commodified on a mass scale so that people are brought together in giant stadia for football matches, racing events or rock concerts. Work requires mass transit systems so that collectivised workforces can be brought in and out of cities and towns sharing air and facilities. The unemployed are required to show up to sign on for benefits en-masse. Despite the increased efficiency of (underfunded) public health systems the virus continues to spread globally, accelerated by the creation and maintenance of the capitalist world market. The shrinking of the world market through communication and mass transit, concentration of working-class populations and destruction of national borders as described in the Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels 2002) also produce connected âhuman factoriesâ for viral production.
Worldwide pandemics are only one cause of human death on a mass scale. The impacts of global poverty and immiseration, imperialist wars and environmental devastation are much more effective human and planetary killers. However, global pandemics can have massive and unequally distributed impacts on mortality and health. The possible source of the current COVID -19 epidemic has been identified as arising from profitable âwet marketsâ (where live animals are sold) in Wuhan, China, where the virus jumped from animal (possibly a bat or pangolin) to human infection. This leap in infection cross-species has been common for other sources of illness which begin as zoonotic and then progressed to human to human transmission. In the case of this particular virus that jump occurred quickly and efficiently. As a coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, has much in common with other viruses of this type such as SARS and MERS. SARS-CoV-2 causes respiratory infections and ultimately organ failure. It spreads primarily through respiratory droplets (breath, coughs and sneezes). There is evidence that the virus that leads to COVID-19 can exist on hard surfaces for some time, particularly plastics, which led to concerns as to whether the virus can also exist on banknotes and packaging. As SARS-CoV-2 is a newly discovered virus not much is known about the virusâ epidemiology other than that it is highly infectious even (perhaps a matter of weeks) before symptoms begin to appear. There seems to be a range of illnesses that might occur from the barely noticeable, through the mild (cough, high temperature, sore throat) to the serious (difficulty breathing, destruction of lung tissue and multiple organ failure) and fatal. Primarily older people and those with pre-existing conditions are impacted by the virus which has a high mortality rate that exponentially increases with age. Death and serious illness in the UK from the virus are more likely in working class, black/Asian groups and those in areas of economic deprivation. The virus is potentially in the âsweet spotâ where a series of waves of global outbreaks amounting to 1918 proportions is theoretically possible and appears to be an increasingly realistic prospect. If a virus âburnsâ too quickly through human bodies then the chances of spread are reduced. Ebola, for example, where the death and incapacity rate is high and devastating, has not become a global pandemic partly because victims die quickly before they can spread the virus. The transmission route for Ebola is also not as direct as that of viruses that can spread by respiratory means. Influenza (the flu) spreads more easily as victims are not incapacitated immediately and due to vaccines and other public measures the death rate is not high. Less is currently known about transmission of COVID-19 but it seems likely that those infected can spread the disease without even being aware that they have it as it spreads easily through coughs, sneezes and surfaces. Unlike influenza there is no cure for COVID-19 and any antibodies that are likely to develop might only offer short-term protection against the illness. Public health systems, many of which are already impoverished by austerity, are quickly overwhelmed by the spread of the disease as many of those infected will require intensive care beds or complex forms of treatment. Because of its virulence, COVID-19 has taken hold in various countries. Infections in China accelerated rapidly after the reporting of the first cases in December 2019 and throughout the first few months of 2020 there were outbreaks of COVID-19 in nearly every country with initial âhot spotsâ in South Korea and Italy. By early March every country, particularly in Europe and North America, was impacted. In the United Kingdom (UK) cases are growing at an exponential rate with the first death in the UK reported on 5th March 2020 accelerating so that by 12th of May there were 32,065 official deaths in the UK although there are concerns that this figure is an under-estimate and at the time of writing âexcess deathsâ in the UK are estimated at over 55,000. The UK is likely to have one of the highest death rates in the world by the end of the pandemic.
This book considers the COVID-19 pandemic through a case study of how the UK government is currently preparing the population at the outset of the outbreak in 2020 and reflections on how this might produce new solutions outside of the market or the state. The framework employed is influenced by Marxism, Anarchism, class theory, social movement analysis and critical analysis of preparedness.
In Chap. 2 we consider how COVID-19 is being deployed as an element of a continuing class struggle between capital and labour. The argument is that capitalism creates and maintains capital at a multitude of scales, including the viral, and that COVID-19 as a virus and its material and discursive consequences are an active part of capital accumulation, continuing class struggle and class formation. COVID-19 operates as an element of class struggle in terms of a âwar from aboveâ of the ruling class in terms of its use as a âforce of natureâ in eugenics and against surplus populations, in creating new commodities and markets and as a justification for the deployment of an increasingly authoritarian RSA (Repressive State Apparatus) to ensure that workers continue to labour under increasingly dangerous conditions. Chapter 3 considers the UKâs preparedness plans as using âclass practicesâ which are tacitly designed to disadvantage and divide the working class in favour of elements of the middle class and examines the behavioural science underpinning pandemic preparedness for COVID-19 uncovering its classed assumptions in terms of how distinctions, markets and altruism operate. It also considers how social isolation and quarantine function as a classed practice and how government policies make assumptions concerning housing, social practices and resources as a form of violence against the working class . Chapter 4 concludes the book by looking at alternatives to neo-liberal methods of dealing with the pandemic through either marketisation, disaster capitalism or a strengthening of the state and some form of âstate captureâ. Rather, alternatives around social movements and mutual aid are suggested drawing on anarchist and autonomist (anarchist/Marxist) per...
