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The pandemic and capitalism
By Michael Roberts for Counterfire 2 May 2020
The pandemic and capitalism By Michael Roberts for Counterfire 2 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
The pandemic and capitalism By Michael Roberts for Counterfire 2 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
The pandemic and capitalism By Michael Roberts for Counterfire 2 May 2020 From wildlife to animals to humans Just another flu? 50m deaths or lockdown? Be prepared! Flattening the curve: hospitals overloaded Excess in London Sweden near
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Just another flu?
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50m deaths or lockdown?
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Be prepared!
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Flattening the curve: hospitals overloaded
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Excess in London
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Sweden near the top
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Lockdown and slump
- 2.7 bn workers worldwide are now affected by full or partial lockdown
measures, representing around 81 % of the world’s 3.3 billion workforce.
- The world economy has seen nothing like this. Nearly all economic
forecasts for global GDP in 2020 are for a contraction of 3-5%, as bad if not worse than in the Great Recession of 2008-9.
- In lockdowns, output in most economies will fall by 25% (OECD); the
lockdown will directly affect sectors amounting to up to one third of GDP in the major economies. For each month of containment, there will be a loss of 2 percentage points in annual GDP growth.
- Short-term collapse in global output likely to rival or exceed any recession
- f the last 150 years - Kenneth Rogoff.
- “We now project that over 170 countries will experience negative per
capita income growth this year.” IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva
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Only labour creates value
“Every child knows a nation which ceased to work, I will not say for a year, but even for a few weeks, would perish.” (Marx to Kugelmann, London, July 11, 1868).
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Lost forever
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Emerging economies to slump
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Billions to lose incomes- ILO
- Of the total global working population
- f 3.3 billion, about 2 billion work in
the “informal economy”, often on short-term contracts or self- employment, and suffered a 60% collapse in their wages in the first month of the crisis. Of these, 1.6 billion face losing their livelihoods,
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More than half a billion back into poverty
- Under the most serious scenario - a
20% contraction in income - the number of people living in extreme poverty would rise by 434 million people to 922 million worldwide. The same scenario would see the number
- f people living below the $5.50 a day
threshold rise by 548 million people to nearly 4 billion - Oxfam
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Only half workers are working
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Most households have lost income
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Output collapse
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Profitability crunch: secular stagnation
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No return to normal: US economy
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The UK economy will never return to its already weak pre-crisis trend
On average, GDP is around 14 per cent below a continuation of its pre- recession trend (with the trend assumed to be the growth rate over the five years prior to the start of the recession
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The lessons
- It’s capitalism that is generating these crises, not nature as such: environmental pollution,
industrial farming, climate change, pandemics – there are more pandemics to come
- The market does not work - whether it be the COVID-19 crisis, the next pandemic or the
climate crisis. Government has had to intervene and direct.
- The COVID-19 crisis has exposed that it is those workers whose jobs are most undervalued
by this system who we most rely on.
- Failure of private healthcare and big pharma: we need free public healthcare; mass public
investment in research and production of medicines and vaccines.
- Instead of bailouts of big business, we need takeovers and planning; not looking to return
to ‘normal’
- Debt cancellation for poor countries; end tax havens
- Public ownership of key services: eg Amazon, mail ,broadband, social media.
- A socialised economy democratically-run and internationally coordinated