The following points are an initial assessment of the situation caused by the pandemic. These considerations are as narrow as possible and will be followed by more detailed and documented action.
1) The pandemic of the new coronavirus is causing a very serious world social crisis with completely new features. Very quickly and in all continents the daily life of many hundreds of millions of people is being disrupted, and the process continues. This is a total social fact, involving all dimensions of social life. One way to describe the situation is that social relationships seem to be suspended, frozen.
In other historical situations, a total crisis of social relations is the product of war or revolution or economic collapse. In this case, causality is reversed, because the detonator appears to be something external to social relations. But this is not so: the virus is a natural agent, but the pandemic is a social product.
2) The spectacularization of the pandemic is decisive in shaping its mass perception, of which the compression of individual and social space-time is an essential aspect. Beyond any doubt, this has the effect of focusing attention on the current emergency and individual survival while neglecting the pre-existing causes of the pandemic and feeding the idea that "we all are in the same boat", creating an atmosphere of patriotic union. However, the self-defence reaction to the spectacularization, which, among leftists, tends to be to minimize the health risk, was completely wrong and in a few days became intolerably irresponsible and politically suicidal. The pandemic is a real fact and its risks are very real. It is not the so-called "Spanish flu" but, equally certainly, it is not "a flu like others".
3) The pandemic was not an unlikely or unpredictable event, which could fall into the category of the "black swan". It had been announced by other important epidemics ("avian", "swine", Mers, only to indicate epidemics known to the general public) and it is at least since the early nineties of the last century that specialists have acknowledged the emergence of new diseases and the re-emergence of others that were considered confined.
The lethality rate of the new coronavirus is undoubtedly much lower than can be inferred from the ratio between clinically proven cases and declared deaths, because the infected are much more numerous: I do not know how much, but I would not be surprised if they were about ten times more than the official cases. However, there is also no doubt that the lethality of the coronavirus is much higher than that of a normal seasonal flu (whose direct and indirect lethality is 0.1%) and that the deaths as a result of the pandemic are much more numerous than those declared: those who live in Bergamo realize it easily, just by talking to friends and acquaintances. For an easily transmissible virus, a lethality of 2% is extremely dangerous (out of a million infected implies 20 thousand deaths); but on large numbers even a lethality of 0.5% can produce many thousands of fatalities and an excess of mortality, as it's happening (the value indicated is only an example; but it is possible that it is close to the real lethality of the coronavirus). It is clear that the actual lethality of an epidemic - all the more so when a vaccine is missing - also depends on the timeliness, extent and consistency of the containment measures taken.
It must also be clear that this pandemic is not merely a natural phenomenon but that it is the product of the interaction between human activity and the environment; and that the tragedy could have been avoided by timely and well-targeted measures and by preparing the material means to deal with an emergency.
The crux of the matter is that all major changes in society bring about ecological changes which, in turn, lead to the emergence and re-emergence of diseases. Viruses evolve with society and changes in the organic turnover between society and nature. More than thirty years have passed since specialists noted the emergence of new diseases and the re-emergence of diseases that were thought to be contained or disappearing. For forty years, the spread of the HIV virus and the resulting syndrome, AIDS, has been a tragically renowned example.
Global climate change, which sums up the overall effects of human activity on the deterioration of ecological balances, is also a cause or contributory factor in the spread of the proliferation of vectors of certain diseases.
5) The unpreparedness of States to deal with a massive health emergency such as the Covid-19pandemic cannot be explained by the unpredictability and suddenness of the international spread of the virus. The serious problems shown by the health systems of the richest countries in the world, i.e. the most advanced capitalisms, are the result of decades of legislative re-regulation - of the so-called neoliberalism - whose priority is not the improvement of health services but the balance of public budgets; at the same time, the privatization of health care and the introduction of market criteria in state health services have been favoured. The subordination of citizens' health to financial interests and private health entrepreneurship has therefore reduced the resilience of health systems to the impact of the pandemic.
6) In the political and health management of an epidemic, correct and timely information to citizens is of paramount importance, but all governments have sought to minimise the risk. It is debatable whether the main responsibility in the People's Republic of China lies with the local or central authorities, but there the underlying problem has been and continues to be censorship and political dictatorship. In the face of what was happening in China, the underestimation of risk by the governments of liberal or post-democratic states was all the way more serious.
This is not just a cognitive problem. The subjective perception of risk has been shaped by priorities other than the safety and health of citizens, be it the mechanisms within the bureaucratic hierarchy, the need not to disrupt the political framework, the need not to damage tourist and trade flows, not to reduce productivity or not to affect production, sales and profits. Hence also the violent and hypocritical oscillations, as in Italy, between opposing attitudes (from "everything open!" to "close everything!"), the conflicts of competence, the subordination to the dictates of Confindustria [the Italian employers federation; TN] and the unpunished leak of information regarding the restrictive orders.
The underestimation of the risk is the reason why, when the epidemic gets out of control, one must try to counterbalance superficiality, inertia and unpreparedness by resorting to extreme measures, large-scale quarantine and, finally, "suspension" of social life.
7) During this pandemic, two opposing positions were expressed in the non-governmental left. According to one of these two positions, the epidemic - or even the deliberate invention of an epidemic risk - can be used instrumentally for political purposes that have nothing to do with the health of citizens: as an alibi or diversion of attention from other more concrete problems, or as a reason and precedent to legitimize emergency measures dangerous to democratic freedoms.
The other position, on the other hand, calls for the generalisation of measures to protect and contain contagion, particularly by emphasising the risks of workers in industrial enterprises.
Going beyond the schematization and entering into the merits, one could note confusion of ideas, coexistence of both positions (in the beginning, at least, as a hypothesis) and turn around (without self-criticism) when, faced with 100 daily deaths, it was no longer possible to sustain that it was an artificial form of social alarm.
Although completely mistaken in the understanding of the pandemic phenomenon and politically suicidal if stubbornly supported, the concern at the bottom of the first position is serious: it is an appeal not to take refuge in mere survival and, even more so, to the criticism of the political and ideological management of the crisis. For example, we understand the need to act quickly, but it is serious that restrictions on fundamental constitutional rights, such as freedom of movement and freedom of assembly, are not subject to parliamentary debate and are implemented with the particular instrument of the decrees of the President of the Council of Ministers, a very dangerous precedent. To those who would like to pose as Churchill using Facebook and ministerial orders, one must remember that in the middle of the world war the British Chamber continued to debate seriously, even "in the darkest hour". The legislative bodies should never go into quarantine, renouncing the duty of direction and control over the work of the executive. The Italian post-democracy proved once again to be the most sordid in the European Union.
8) In a situation of rampant epidemic, the second position is correct in the present situation. The differentiation in treatment between public and private sector workers and, within the latter, between service and industry workers must be rejected with the utmost determination. The strikes by Italian metalworkers are very fair; if anything, they should have been done earlier and all non-essential activities should have been stopped immediately.
However, among the supporters of the second line there is often a contrast between the Chinese way of dealing with the epidemic - of rapid, drastic and effective intervention - and the "Western" one, slow, weak, inconsistent, ineffective; explicitly or not, here the statist approach - when not smuggled as socialist - is contrasted with the liberal and liberalist one. This contraposition is unacceptable.
Firstly, because it overlooks the fact that, throughout December and until 22 January, the line taken by the Chinese authorities, certainly those of Wuhan, was aimed at reducing fears about the danger of the virus and the extent of the contagion, thus wasting valuable time in which it would still be possible to contain the epidemic.
Secondly, because this position lends itself perfectly to technocratic and authoritarian management of the crisis. After all, at least in relation to the inertia of other governments, even the Conte government and the mayors of Lombardy could pass as imitators of the virtuous "Chinese model".
9) The above observations are important because the radicality of the "cure" that is being implemented everywhere - quarantine, distancing, blocking of activities - is necessary to avoid the worst, but it is not a cure at all. Rather, it resembles closing the barn when the oxen - in this case the virus - have already escaped. Like the extermination of infected animals, it is an emergency remedy that in no way affects the causal mechanism of the pathogenesis. On the contrary, the extermination of animals strengthens and extends the pathogenic mechanism, through the damage inflicted on small farmers and the contrast between the alleged biosecurity of modern industrial farms and traditional breeding methods.
In short, although necessary, quarantine turns us into broilers, they say in North America. So, it is politically dangerous to emphasize the "virtuosity" of quarantine and military style intervention. This attitude risks working in favor of post-democracy enslaved to the interests of capital, that is in itself a pathogenic factor, or adopting a hypocritical and schizophrenic double moral: criticizing national authoritarianism and exalting the pseudo-socialist one.
Everywhere in the world, these reactions of political regimes - more or less strong, more or less coherent - are the signs of a resounding bankruptcy in the prevention of the epidemic: it is up to citizens and workers to liquidate them.
10) The "suspension" of social life imposed from above because of the pandemic evokes dystopian and totalitarian scenarios, or an economic depression such that it leads to the collapse of so-called neoliberalism. It is still too early for a well-founded forecast, but in principle these are unlikely scenarios. The depression is already underway, we will see the consequences, but the experience of 2008-9 and the following years shows that the reorientation of economic and social policies is by no means a foregone conclusion. On the contrary, despite the real tragedy, the most likely final result is a return to normal, not without having incorporated the experience of a state of emergency into the arsenal of public policy.
Even during the pandemic, action must be taken to prevent this from happening. I am not here to formulate specific objectives, which is the task of the different actors, but a general logic. In the immediate term, it is a question of claiming the equal right to health for all citizens: and therefore, for all citizens, this right must be put before productivity and profit, without compromise. In the same way, private health structures and private and public companies with technical and productive capacity to combat the epidemic must be mobilised - at no cost to the citizens.
And immediately the objective must be set to overturn the fundamental terms of the health policy that has been in place for decades, both in terms of material and human resources and in terms of costs for the citizens.
11) Total social events such as war and the pandemic create a common mass experience, at the same time as they crush the individual under their weight. However submerged, contradictions continue to operate and, in the long run, not even the patriotic union sacrée can prevent them from arising. It is then that the total and social nature of the pandemic can be overturned into a collective awareness of the political responsibilities and historical reasons for the tragedy. Through the experience of the extraordinary pathology we can shed light on the pathology of the normal functioning of society: on the subordination of citizens' health to the interests of finance and profit and on the systemic reasons why this happens. The pandemic brings the global nature of epidemiological and ecological problems to life in an immediate way: it opens a glimpse into the set of phenomena that alter the world balance between society and nature. It is a reason to question what and how is produced and consumed, to challenge the industrialization of livestock farming and agriculture on a global scale, factors of poverty and pathology.
The Covid-19 pandemic is symmetrical to global climate change: microscopic and macroscopic tell us that society is global and that nation states are undeniably obsolete obstacles in the way of rational management of the world's ecological, epidemiological and social problems, which are in synergy. They also tell us that social productive forces can function as forces of destruction, because they serve profit and capital accumulation rather than human needs.
12) Finally, this pandemic should teach us that the solution to the problem of the emergence of new viruses and the re-emergence of old diseases is not only pharmacological; and that the prevention and management of epidemics cannot be entrusted to the expertise and mere state power. The latter can react more or less effectively, but not prevent or remove pathogenic socio-economic causes: on the contrary, the power of the states is at the service of the social system that creates the problems and is itself a joint cause of the problems.
Social justice and a rational and sustainable relationship with the microscopic and macroscopic nature in which we live require the socialisation of the management of the productive forces of society. This cannot happen without the socialization of politics and the maximum extension of political freedom. Even for the prevention and better management of epidemics, democracy is not an option that can be renounced, unless we accept that citizens and workers are reduced to objects on which to impose restrictions instead of being activated as subjects of prevention and removal of biological and social diseases.
That is why quarantines and the "suspension" of social life are evidence of a systemic failure of the capitalist social order in the world.
Translation by Collettivo O45
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