Capitalism In The Time Of COVID-19
Ajith Keralavarma
Even coronavirus (COVID-19) appears relatively meek under capitalism, a system where the market decides human worth or capitalism. Multiple ‘statuses’ have been ‘updated’ about living in times of coronavirus, experienced by the rich and poor alike. However, is this our reality? The picture put forth by extreme class difference in the capitalist world says something else. There also exists a rush to build businesses amidst all of this, also a part of this economic system.
About 300,000 people in almost all regions across the world have been affected. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared novel coronavirus induced COVID-19 a global pandemic. Even in these trying times — when the entire world is still living in extreme fear, major cities have been shut down, means of living, including shops & workplaces have almost stopped functioning, when new hospitals are being built and hotels are being converted to quarantine centres — capitalism is still in the lookout for monopoly.
There is no cure to COVID-19 as yet. Medical research institutes of several countries, both private and public, are in pursuit of this. It’s understood from news reports that some of these experiments are even ready for clinical trials. While we could rejoice at this fact, we should also recognise that the distribution of this vaccine should take place across the world, without class bias — for only then can we efficiently control the spread of the pandemic. It is in such times that we also get to know of attempts by capitalist countries — with policies aimed at the protection of private capital — to acquire exclusive control over such medical innovations.
CureVac is a German company, with the support of the German govt, is involved in developing a preventive vaccine for coronavirus. As per CureVac’s claims, the company has already made considerable progress on this front. However, a German national daily, Die Welt, recently reported on US’s attempts to gain monopoly over the vaccine upon a promise of a large sum in return. In fact, international media have reported on a meeting that took place at White House on March 2nd, in which CureVac’s Chief Executive Daniel Manichella was also present. Die Welt looks at these as efforts by the US to influence researchers at work to develop an anti-corona vaccine. It’s understood that this move has infuriated the Steinmeier-govt in no less amount.
It’s capitalism alone that can view the unfortunate results of this pandemic as sources of profit. When will this ideological blindness that values profit more than human life see light? Even when a large majority of the world is staring at their own deaths — due to lack of affordable health care — capitalism chooses to look away, without an ounce of humanity to offer. Capitalist logic always asserts that efficient mobilisation, production and distribution of resources can be carried out only in those social structures where private capital is allowed to reign freely. The public sector is viewed as an extremely incompetent option under this logic. Such ideas form the foundational principles for privatisation in capitalist countries.
As per WHO’s World Medicines Situation Report, about 90% of those living in developing countries pay for medication, from their own pockets (out-of-pocket expenditure). The reasons cited for this include an inept public health system and lack of insurance coverage in general or insufficient coverage on drugs. In capitalist countries too, out-patient drugs are not covered by a majority of public insurance policies. Naturally because of this, patients depend on private insurers for these drugs. However, for that particular class of people across developed and developing countries who can neither afford private insurers nor spend out of their own pockets, obtaining medicines is a pain. This inequality is also evident in the amount of money countries spend on medicines. 78.5% of the world’s medical expenditure is carried out by 46 ‘high-income’ countries (World Bank’s classification) that only cover about 16% of the world population. At the same time, only about 11% of it is by countries that come in the ‘low-middle’ and ‘low income’ categories but cover about 71% of the world’s population. Learning about pharmaceutical corporations and the high prices set by them should be seen in a larger context — of a world with an ever widening gap between the rich and poor countries and between the rich and the poor within countries.
Crisis of Capitalist Healthcare Models
This is also a time when capitalism’s ‘efficiency logic’ is being subjected to extreme scrutiny. It’s evident that the private sector has been a failure at managing the pandemic — with capitalist countries like the USA, which push insurance over public healthcare as also impose it on other countries, today standing stupefied by the pandemic.
Many are left out of US’ health insurance coverage. Laying bare the problems of this insurance-centric model of healthcare, a survey by Chicago University estimates that the percentage of those who fear fatal illnesses is much less (33%) than those who fear the expenses they may have to deal with as part of these diseases (40%) in America (The Guardian). While about 40% choose not to sign up for medical tests and treatment, about 44% are hesitant to consult a doctor when sick, according to the same report. Its sheer unaffordability that forces people to not seek medical care and such a phenomenon will take the spread of coronavirus to dangerous levels, adds the report. Besides, there also exists extreme anxiety regarding amidst the common public about losing their salaries if quarantined or admitted for medical treatment even for a day.
The United States is one the countries that spend the most on healthcare, with it accounting to almost 18% of the country’s GDP. Its neighbour, Canada’s per capita health expenditure is more than the US’. However, about 10% of Canadians avoid medical prescriptions, simply due to the cost of medicines. Despite their high health expenditure, the fact that these countries seem helpless in the face of pandemics like the COVID-19 is ample evidence to indicate how capitalist healthcare models have absolutely nothing to offer to those in the margins. In fact, the claim that ‘wealth is health’ has also been proved redundant by the virus.
Neoliberal Free-Trade Agreements and Health
The WTO took shape in 1995 with the passing of three major trade agreements — The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was one of them. With the coming in of TRIPS, countries were made to amend their patent rights. For developing countries, the implementation of this agreement was a burden, for it negatively affected access to affordable medicines in these countries. With TRIPS put in place, global pharmaceutical corporations which acquired patent monopoly had the freedom to fix the cost of medicines across the world. The spread of HIV/AIDS in countries like Africa in the late ‘90s, coupled with the high cost of medicines, pushed such regions to extreme misery at the time. When interests of monopoly patents overtook fundamental rights like good health, the WTO introduced ‘waivers’, which too were, however, usurped by capitalist forces, especially the US.
Such patent rights have only proved helpful for pharmaceutical companies to raise costs (sometimes about 10-100 times over) and fleece profit. For instance, Bayer is an international pharmaceutical corporation which produces cancer medicine Nexavar — the cost of which was 2.84 lakhs/month. Once the Indian government granted ‘compulsory license’ (the only time they did it in the post-TRIPS era), the price of the same slashed to Rs. 8, 800. However, the government here hasn’t used this flexibility after 2013, even in extreme public health exigencies. This insensitivity, influenced by global pharma corporations and the West, has put a lid to the hopes of lakhs of citizens who are denied good healthcare on a regular basis, because of high expense.
It’s well known how poor nations struggle to survive in these times of expensive healthcare. However, one should note that the condition of people who fall under ‘middle to low income’ categories in so-called ‘developed’ countries too is not too different either. This is where capitalism’s ‘efficiency logic’ falters significantly. When it’s claimed that goods and services will be taken to people in the best way possible under a free-market capitalist system, a large majority is simply left out in this equation. This is where we need to recognise the importance of public health and demand policies that don’t leave healthcare to the vagaries of the market – for only then can we fight pandemics like the current one and perhaps all that’s about to come.
Socialist Medical Solidarity
Within a week of acknowledging the existence of a novel virus in December 2019, Chinese research institutes were able to discover its genome sequence and send it to other countries. In fact, countries now in a race to acquire exclusive access to the vaccine started off their research with the help of the data provided by China. We know how within days China was able to construct new hospitals consisting of more than 1000 beds each for their novel coronavirus patients. China also stood by its people when they started facing multiple other issues associated with the outbreak. With the help of a host of doctors, nurses and medical professionals who saw beyond profit, socialist China was able to curb the spread of the pandemic to a significant extent. From about 80, 000 confirmed cases in two months, the country has been able to bring the number down to 14 (at the time of writing this article; 16/3/2020).
There are no doubts about the negative impact coronavirus has made on the Chinese economy. However, even in such dire times, China is out to provide aid to other countries struggling to fight the virus. Doctors, nurses, groups of experts, and medical equipment have been sent by China to Italy, Iran, Iraq, Japan etc. and even the US. Cuba too, another communist nation, has sent their doctors (considered one of the best in the world) and medical groups elsewhere. Most of us know how Indian state Kerala’s communist rule too has stayed firmly with its people — despite having no powers of a nation-state — guided by Marxian humanitarian principles.
What is to be done
Ideologies that do not value our well being need to be urgently discarded — be it capitalism or fascism. Once coronavirus has passed, we need to be vigilant to not let forgetfulness take over — for our bad memory will be taken advantage of. Black death, cholera, AIDS, swine flu, and ebola have all imparted a great deal of lessons to us — and these lessons demand the strengthening of public health, a fundamental right. Failed systems need to be removed. We should at least keep a stone in reserve to be thrown at the system that failed us, when the pandemic has passed
Break the Chain
There are things that need to be done on an emergency basis. We need to break the chain that has been spreading the COVID-19, and be vigilant to not be a part of the chain. Learn about the symptoms, precautions to be taken, protocols to be followed, etc. Ensure that the information we’ve received is scientific and rational, and share it with others. Stay alert and just not let the virus get to you.
Ajith Keralavarma is a research scholar of Canadian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. This article first appeared in Deshabhimani. It was translated from Malayalam by Mukulika R.
Follow us for regular updates!
Telegram
t.me/studentstrugglein
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/studentstrugglemonthly
WhatsApp
https://chat.whatsapp.com/BvEXdIEy1sqIP0YujRhbDR