Global Capitalism and Corona Pandemic—In Search for Radical Solution

Global capitalism’s instability is inherent in its nature and structure. In fact, Corona pandemic triggered the third capitalist crash in the global economy in the present century. May be the crash was anyway inevitable, but the Pandemic has aggravated the dimensions of the crash hitherto unknown. The crash even though aggravated by the Pandemic is systemic in nature. The system is not infallible. Rather, the inherent tendency of capitalism as an economic system is to produce recurring crashes and the radical solutions to that sickness of the system are beyond the imagination of the politics as it is practised today in various parts of the world—mainly in the garb of liberal democracy. Three basic problems can be attributed to global capitalism as an economic system. Firstly, the economic space of capitalism as it is ruled by several capitalist enterprises is undemocratic. And this undemocratic nature of capitalism in the economic sphere keeps it away from the general well-being of the majority. The second problem associated with global capitalism is its inherent tendency of generating crash or crisis every four to seven years which damage the enterprises and the economy—rather, the majority of the enterprises and the current Pandemic is no exception. Thirdly, capitalism in general and global capitalism in particular generate inequalities of wealth and income which widen further at the time of crash or crisis. This chapter on global capitalism and Corona pandemic will make an attempt to decipher these basic three problems of capitalism as an economic system and would try to see if any radical solution is plausible in terms of reforming the system as Keynes advocated at the time of Great Depression during 1930s.