Pandemic, systemic crisis and new neoliberal normality

Abstract

The pandemic due to the spread of COVID-19 can be interpreted as a consequence of the process of capital accumulation and the systemic crisis it reproduces through its geographical spread. This paper aims to address the relationship of this permanent crisis with the development and culmination of a historical mode of production. It first discusses studies that link the emergence of new epidemics to the socio-ecological imbalances caused by the expansion of capitalism. It then analyses how the political management of the current pandemic, sustained by a warlike rhetoric of "fighting the virus", masks the intrinsic violence of neoliberalism. Finally, it explores the trends of the "new neoliberal normality" and the scenarios of social polarisation, deepening inequalities and institutional control that may follow as global capitalist society adopts the lessons learned during the pandemic as a form of political management of its historical decline. It concludes that the implications of the current pandemic demand a critical view that goes beyond the health emergency and conceives of the situation as an aspect of the culmination of the capitalist world-ecology.