The Deepening Crisis of Global Capitalism in the Age of COVID-19: Why Marx was Right?

Abstract

Introduction :

Any crisis provides an opportunity to learn. But what is the class nature of the learning process? The current global crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic is not different at all from that political historicity. However, the recent global political experience bears sufficient evidence that the global capitalist class and mainstream economics are not ready to learn – they tend to repeat the history, as Marx said, first as a tragedy then as a farce. While the global capitalist class converts history into opportunism and its ultimate survival method – profitability, mainstream neoclassical economics keeps itself occupied with producing ‘more rigorous’ mathematico-deductive models and theories to justify the same historical process. The present debate of mainstream economics on the crisis dedicates its role to fulfill two main objectives, which as this study will demonstrate are equally false. Firstly, it attempts to highlight that the present crisis and its deepening nature were caused by the global pandemic. In other words, the argument goes, prior to the pandemic global capitalism was vibrant and healthy. Secondly, it attempts to highlight that the recovery methods that are identical to the 2008 crisis, consisting of austerity measures, financialization, tax-cuts to the top 1% and dispossession etc. should be instrumented in order to attain recovery from the current crisis. This study was conducted in order to challenge these views and to present a Marxist alternative.