The York Left Consortium: Reflections on Capitalism’s Half-Life is a blog that gathers written interventions relating to the coronavirus and its aftermath by leftist faculty and grad students at York (as well as some non-York experts invited by York faculty and students). It features short blog posts as well as longer thought pieces, and speculations. Authors can provide not just original writing for the blog but link and re-post pieces from other websites (personal or organizational). Ultimately, it is hoped the site will become a platform for York’s Left beyond the current moment associated with COVID-19.
We look forward to your submissions. Contact Robert Latham (rlatham1@yorku.ca) and Raju Das (rajudas@yorku.ca).
York Left Consortium: Reflections on Capitalism’s Half-Life
Plandemic! and Conspiracy Theories: War on Truth by Far-Right Extremism
Steve Mesaros | York Graduate Researcher
By Steve Mesaros One of the most vital tools for Fascist movements is to devalue the very concept of truth. No one seems better at this job than former US President Donald Trump. Throughout his campaign and presidency, he echoed numerous conspiracy the …
Read moreSocialism, Capitalism and the COVID-19 Epidemic: Interview with Victor Wallis
Mingliang Zhuo | Piece of Interest
In the context of coronavirus raging around the world, in April 2020 Dr. Mingliang Zhuo interviewed Professor Victor Wallis, former editor of Socialism and Democracy, on some important issues via email. Wallis points out in the exclusive interview that …
Read moreAntifa and the Marxist Left: Some Questions and Answers
Answered by Walter, Antifa International Collective and posed by Marxist Studies in Global and Asian Perspective | QnA
Answered by Walter, antifa International Collective and posed by Marxist Studies in Global and Asian Perspective. The historical roots of widespread anti-fascism are in united and popular fronts especially prominent in the 1930s and led by Marxist-oriented parties and movements. Does antifa explicitly position itself in relation to that history?
Read moreCOVID-19 and Crisis in Western Agriculture
Alex Moldovan | York Graduate Researcher
The first few months of the pandemic has intensified structural contradictions in North American and the Western European political economy. The blows COVID-19 is dealing to agricultural production in the west are concerning because by chocking the flow of migrant workers food production is then slowed. The coronavirus pandemic has, in no small way, brought about a crisis in capitalist agriculture in the West.
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Viral Anxieties
A.T. Kingsmith | York Graduate Researcher
Anxiety has long been an important response to potential threats or hazards in an environment. Indeed, historically, most social formations have involved persistent inequality and poverty that placed people under mental stress. But from sweaty palms and rapid breathing to increased heart rate and muscle tension, the mechanisms that once worked to protect people and assure safety and security—preparing the body for danger by putting it on alert—have become jumbled and misdirected under capitalism, no longer capable of eliciting action or responsiveness.
Read moreCoronavirus & Carceral Capitalism
Casey Buchholz | Guest Contributor
From a prison cell in 1930, Antonio Gramsci wrote: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old world is dying and the new cannot yet be born; in the interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” The political economic and biological relevance of Gramsci’s words and the conditions under which they were written extend well beyond historical parallel and literary metaphor. A crisis has metastasized from the micro-biological to the political economic. Now, neoliberalism is dying. In the interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms have appeared: social distancing, crisis policing, death camps, and pandemic labour. Of what disease are these symptoms? Not coronavirus. Carceral capitalism.
Read moreCoronavirus, the Economic Crisis and Indian Capitalism
Michael Roberts | Guest Contributor
Here we are, on the 30th of April, with a recession around the world, where there are now millions of cases of coronavirus which has hit almost all regions, making it a pandemic. We also have an increasing number of deaths, particularly in the United States and Europe. The number of cases is also increasing in other parts of the world—in Latin America, Asia, and to some extent, also in Africa. Clearly, the disease is spreading across the world and it is not over yet. We need to analyze what it means and also how it is impacting the economy.
Read moreCOVID-19 and ‘Actually Existing’ Unions
Steven Tufts | York Faculty
The shut-down of non-essential work in response to COVID-19 has decimated labour markets. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 20.5 million more workers lost their jobs in April, as official unemployment skyrocketed to 14.7%. It is the largest single-month increase in unemployment since the data series started in 1948. In Canada, the news was not any better as Statistics Canada reported that another 2 million jobs were lost in April following 1 million jobs lost in March as the unemployment rate increased to 13%. This percentage is a wild underestimation of the full impact of reduced hours and underemployment.
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