The pandemic of racial capitalism: another world is possible
Layla Brown-Vincent
Abstract
As the world grapples with the rising Covid-related death tolls, the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks in the US and Collins Khosa and Petrus Miggels in South Africa have re-ignited the flames of indignation felt by Black and Brown peoples all over the world (A. Taylor 2020). These cases and countless others reveal the anti-people logic of the neoliberal state, dictating the daily
operations of the US and its crony counterparts like Brazil. While the US government struggles with the nearly insurmountable difficulties presented by its grossly underfunded profit-driven healthcare system and its exceptionally inadequate ability (or willingness) to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, it becomes abundantly clear that while Corona is a virus of pandemic proportions, the true pandemic is racial Capitalism. The crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic has the potential to be exploited by neoliberal regimes in order to perpetuate suffering for the majority of people and accumulation of wealth for the few; or, it has the potential to inspire a radical socio-economic shift across the globe, which could lead to an improved quality of life for the underprivileged and the poor. By considering the neoliberal logics undergirding technologies of the disposability of life at play in the handling of Covid-19 in the US alongside the socialist logics of the preservation of life at play in the cases of Venezuela and Cuba, we can begin to see the ways in which an entirely different conception of the global order is possible. This article uses the Covid-19 crisis to expose the deadly anti-Blackness of the neoliberal socio-economic logic and suggests that another world is indeed possible if we can learn from the current crisis.
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Covid-19, racial capitalism, socialism, alternative futures, neoliberalism
Pages
61-74