{"id":10458,"date":"2020-03-30T09:42:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T14:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=10458"},"modified":"2021-06-14T07:22:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:22:00","slug":"pandemic-politics-on-disaster-capitalism-socialism-and-environmentalism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/03\/30\/pandemic-politics-on-disaster-capitalism-socialism-and-environmentalism-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pandemic politics: on disaster capitalism, socialism, and environmentalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This was originally posted over a week ago, but then taken down by request as it was being considered for publication elsewhere (but not published there). A shorter version of it appeared yesterday at VT Digger<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school I work for, the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources<\/a>, recently undertook a strategic planning exercise that envisioned four different scenarios for how the world might look in 20 years. We settled on two main axes for distinguishing the scenarios: (1) scarcity<\/em> versus abundance <\/em>of resources, and (2) integration<\/em> versus separation<\/em> or atomization<\/em>, where what’s integrated is both society (less conflict-ridden, more egalitarian) and its relationship with the natural world (more biocentric in its sensibilities). The resultant four scenarios, named with a little levity, map against the axes this way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\npoint of the exercise was to help the School prepare for pursuing its mission\nin each of the four quadrants. By definition, we are currently at the center of\nthe diagram, so the task is to imagine how we will respond if the world moves\nin one or another of these four directions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nall know what’s happened since then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nthe spread of coronavirus taking its toll on our economies and everyday lives,\nand with local and national lockdowns being implemented to varying degrees, the\nlikely result includes businesses closing, people losing work and not being\npaid, food becoming less available, anxieties and crime spiking, and the global\neconomy contracting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\ngovernments respond to these prospects is one of the key variables, but, at the\nvery least, the current pandemic portends an overall shift leftward in the\ndiagram. The question is whether the declines will gravitate into a\nsurvivalist, “Handmaid’s Tale” scenario — with “every man for\nhimself” and groups competing against other groups for scarce resources —\nor if collective organization will enable a “Rational Rations”\nscenario to emerge, in which the relative scarcity of resources is dealt with\nreasonably, justly, and without too much conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disasters\nare never just disastrous; they are also an opportunity. The literature<\/a> on “disaster capitalism<\/a>” is fairly robust<\/a> now: it documents the ways in\nwhich the shock<\/a> of disasters (“natural<\/a>” and other kinds) have\nbeen taken advantage of<\/a> in order to bring\nin regimes more favorable to private economic forces and the government players\nthat support their goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s\nNaomi Klein, who came up with the term, describing its most recent form, “coronavirus capitalism<\/a>“, and\noffering a very different alternative:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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