"2020 is gone, but it will not be forgotten. Like 1914, 1929, 1974 and 2001, historians will record it as a moment when the social and economic status quo was radically disrupted and a new era of politics was born. As with each of these evocative dates, the events of last year have both concrete and general aspects; triggered by particular and unpredicted incidents, yet fundamentally conditioned by longer-term contradictions that have been exposed and intensified by the crisis.
The catalyst in this case, of course, was the disease dubbed COVID-19. Marxists such as Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms make Big Flu, have written extensively about the connection between intensive capitalist agricultural practices and the emergence of this and other viruses, so there is no need to repeat their arguments here. Their essential point is that COVID-19 should not be seen as an exogenous shock (that is, something coming from the outside) to our otherwise healthy social system. Rather, the pandemic is a side effect of capitalism’s extractive relationship with the natural world, mediated through and multiplied by globalised chains of production, distribution and travel. This growing likelihood of global pandemics is just one example of how this dynamic will have deadly consequences far beyond planetary warming. If policies remain unchanged, we will see the unravelling of many more of the ecological processes that have kept us safe until now." https://redflag.org.au/node/7508 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#5441): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/5441 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/79610794/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
