It is now almost five years since the start of the COVID event. The public was told there was a deadly disease that would affect the entire population, and everyone was at risk.
However, in order to truly understand COVID, that event must be situated within a framework that examines the underlying economic determinants. In fact, many on the “left” are notable for having failed to undertake such an analysis and merely capitulated to the mainstream narrative.
The COVID event had little if anything to do with public health. It was a policy mechanism deployed to manage an impending financial crisis.
COVID policies served as a pretext for halting economic activity in a controlled manner to address systemic contradictions within neoliberal capitalism. Unprecedented fiscal and monetary interventions were strategic tools to stabilise the economy and prevent a deeper collapse of financial markets.
The lockdowns, framed as public health necessities, effectively suspended economic activity in ways that allowed capital to regroup and restructure. This included consolidating corporate power (e.g. through increased reliance on digital platforms), and creating conditions for new rounds of capital investment post-crisis, facilitated by a convenient debt crisis and World Bank loans with pro-neoliberal strings-attached conditionalities.
Hellbound and Down 