The Coronavirus and the Crisis This Time
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- Published on Friday, 10 April 2020 06:40
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2051 ... April 10, 2020
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The Coronavirus and the Crisis This Time
Sam Gindin
"...so many of the out-of-the way things had happened lately, that Alice has begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible" --- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.
Crises -- not regular downturns but major crises -- are characterized by the uncertainty they bring. They interrupt the normal and require yet-to-be discovered abnormal responses in order for us to move on. In the midst of these periodic calamities, we don’t know how or even whether we will stumble out of them nor what to expect if they do end. Crises are, consequently, moments of turmoil with openings for new political developments, good and bad.
Because each such crisis modifies the trajectory of history, the subsequent crisis occurs in a changed context and so has its own distinct features. The crisis of the 70s, for example, involved a militant working class, a challenge to the American dollar, and a qualitative acceleration in the role of finance and of globalization. The crisis of 2008-09,... on the other hand, involved a largely defeated working class, confirmed the central global role of the dollar, and brought new ways of managing a uniquely finance-dependent economy. Like the previous crisis, the 2008-09 crisis yielded more neoliberal financialization, but this time it also opened the doors to right-wing populism alongside an acute disorientation of traditional political parties.
