The 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 (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 provide not just original writing for the blog but link and re-post pieces from other websites (personal or organizational). In Spring 2021, we are seeking pieces on contemporary capitalist society. We would especially welcome speculations that critically address capitalism in relation to such issues as: work, race, the environment, activism, housing, cities, indigeneity, migrants, religion, imperialism, violence, democracy, fascism and authoritarianism.
York Left Consortium: Reflections on Capitalism’s Half-Life
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.
Read moreWe’re not all in this together
Lesley Wood | Piece of Interest
As CoVid19 cases in shelters and Long Term Care facilities soar, the police in Ontario are ramping up their enforcement of physical distancing bylaws. They ticket those gathering in groups, people standing closer than 2 metres apart, and those using closed park facilities. They can be fined $1000. In addition, police have the right now to ask anyone to show identification with their name, address and date of birth. Those who don’t comply can be fined up to $750.
Read moreNotes on Lenin at 150: Theoretical Preparation for Revolution in the Time of COVID-19
Kevin B. Anderson | Piece of Interest
Two weeks ago, April 22, was the 150th anniversary V.I. Lenin’s birth. What does it mean to consider Lenin 150 years after his birth and at the time of COVID-19? To many on the global left — from anarchists to social democrats — the answer would be a resounding, “He means nothing at all to us,” or, “We reject his legacy.” I believe that this would be misguided, as we still have a lot to learn from the Russian revolutionary thinker, even today, and in spite of the many valid criticisms of his politics and the fate of the USSR that he founded.
Read moreWorking 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.
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