York Left Consortium: Reflections on Capitalism’s Half-Life is a blog that began its life as a space for written interventions relating to the coronavirus and its aftermath by leftist faculty and grad students at York University (as well as some non-York experts invited by York faculty and students).
Its second phase, “Theory and Practice,” is focused on profiling through videos and short written statements what the recent work of thinkers (books or articles for authors, or in the case of activists, recent campaigns) implies for advancing socialism and the struggle against capitalism around the world.
Working Hypotheses for the Political Economy of Modern Epidemics
Stavros Mavroudeas | Guest Contributor
During the last 30 to 40 years, capitalism has become more and more prone to epidemics, in contrast to the prevailing belief that the advances in medicine and the creation of universal and developed health systems had put an end to such phenomena. Especially after 1975, we have the appearance of the ‘emerging epidemics’, i.e. dozens of new diseases, mainly due to viruses, with a frequency that has no analogue in history. These new epidemics are mainly zoonoses, i.e. animal viruses transmitted to humans.
Read moreHuman suffering during the pandemic and the need for a new society
Raju Das | York Faculty
During the on-going pandemic, humanity’s suffering has increased enormously. By May 11, 2020, 4.2 million people in the world had contracted the coronavirus, and 285,000 had died. In the richest and most powerful country of the world, more than 1.4 million cases have been reported, with 81,000 deaths. The pandemic is producing massive adverse impacts, including on income and employment opportunities (Davis, 2020; Toussaint, 2020). The pandemic is forcing us to think about what kind of society we wish to live in. This article discusses the ‘consequences’ of the pandemic for people and what they say about the nature of the society we live in. The article then talks about what a different kind of society would look like, one that is worth fighting for now.
Read moreViews of the Naked City: Pictures from the Daily Round in a City of Emptying Streets
Stefan Kipfer | York Faculty
In the middle of March, I started to post short photo essays on my social media feed. These snapshots were inspired by daily walks and bicycle excursions in Toronto as well as news from around the world about the spread of COVID-19.
Read moreA Better Performance than Prior Presidents?: Trump and the Pandemic
August H. Nimtz | Guest Contributor
Historian Allen Guelzo argues (that Donald Trump has done “substantially more than [George] Washington, [Andrew] Jackson or [Woodrow] Wilson did in the hour of a health crisis.” But is Guelzo guilty of comparing apples and oranges, contexts that are radically different? Perhaps true for the first two presidents. But the Wilson administration was only a century ago. Is it unfair to subject the most academically credentialled of all White House occupants to a comparison with the current one? Who on the face of it ought to have been more open to the best science of his day? And whose Presbyterian certitude ought to have been superior to arguably one of the most morally challenged U.S. presidents?
Read moreAu Maroc, la crise sanitaire au service de l’autoritarisme
Merouan Mekouar | York Faculty
Surprenant renversement de situation au Maroc où la crise générée par le Sars-CoV-2 a donné lieu à des scènes inattendues. Des hôtels de luxe transformés en foyers médicaux, des agents pénitentiaires raccompagnant des prisonniers à leur domicile, des médecins et des policiers en uniforme applaudissant des patients convalescents à leur sortie de l’hôpital, des aides financières distribuées en quelques semaines aux travailleurs informels, des grandes fortunes locales dépensant sans compter au nom de la solidarité, comment expliquer ces mesures dans un pays, acquit il y a quelques semaines encore à une des formes les plus socialement violentes de néolibéralisme en Afrique du Nord ?
Read moreCapitalism and COVID-19
August H. Nimtz | Piece of Interest
By August H. Nimtz Can a society based on the private ownership of the means of production and, more importantly, the values intrinsic to such a mode of production—self-interest—respond effectively to a collective problem? That’s the life and death que …
Read moreFree Transit is in Town, For Now
Stefan Kipfer | York Faculty
By Stefan Kipfer Even before the current pandemic, the idea of free transit had arrived on the mainstream political scene in Toronto as well as in other parts of Canada. https://socialistproject.ca/2020/04/free-transit-is-in-town-for-now/
Read moreDesigning Technology to Protect Individual Sovereignty During The Pandemic
Sarah Manski | Guest Contributor
By Sarah Manski The COVID-19 pandemic has led to controversy about the implementation of technological systems that allow for unprecedented surveillance of society. Public discussions tend toward polarized positions in which widespread contact tracing …
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