COVID-19: the imminent need to renegotiate the rules of the game

The contradictions of capitalism have been presented since the beginning of this new century, mainly with the American crisis of 2008. The adversities happened in the sectors: real estate, economic, political, ecological and climate.

It seemed that these crises that have been going on for years would be enough to highlight social inequalities to mobilize the State to work to dismantle financialization and the maintenance of the status quo against reactionary policies based on conservatism and nationalism.

However, the conjuncture of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) has tended humanity to reflect on its own social behaviors, as the virus goes beyond the field of health, having direct implications in the capitalist model.

For us Brazilians, what initially appeared to be distant has spread like dystopia. The scale and intensity of the virus is serious, but in the Brazilian state absence of public policies such as: social isolation, basic income, mass testing and non vaccination further aggravated the national scenario.

Although viral transmission affects elderly and chronically ill at-risk groups, the pandemic immediately affects other social groups, such as front-line workers: street cleaners, housemaids, manicurists, private security guards, bus drivers, public schools teachers and nurses.

Therefore, the distribution of wealth, the means of production, the workforce and private property are topics the mean of the geopolitical and socioeconomic dialectic of COVID-19, since the social pact established work as the primary source of sustenance for the Individuals, for some people the lockdown an be fatal, because if they are at home, nobody producing for them. As well as going to work, there is also an immense risk of contamination and even in 2021 Brazil continues to grow in the number of people infected and killed by covid because the structural change to slow down capitalism never came.

On the one hand, economic neoliberalism wins the speech of Economy Minister Paulo Guedes with austerity policies cutting the state in important sectors such as education, science and health, giving the country to the privatization of foreign companies, especially American ones, on the other hand, the downsizing of the state creates a palpable and visible dismantling in the lives of vulnerable Brazilian families.

The distribution of wealth, an untouchable topic for some economists obsessed with equipping bankers and large shareholders, requires a delicate look at a time like this when society is led to think how work, by itself, is not capable of providing basic needs and a dignified life for citizens.

Brazil in 2019 totaled BRL 7.3 trillion in GDP with a per capita income of BRL 34,762.00. In 2018, of the 210 million Brazilians, only 1% receives an average of R$27,744.00 per month, in shocking to the most vulnerable people who received only R$820.00 that year, that is, less than the minimum wage at the time.

In health, a sector that is in evidence due to the pandemic, world data show that the Brazilian government invests around 3.9% of GDP, while household spending on health services and products reached 9.2% in 2017 , that is, if the Brazilian already contributes to the government through tax collection to have access to health, it means that we paying the bill twice: once for the government and another for the private sector in the buying medicines and paying for medical tests, also to the expensive amounts in the health insurance..

In the science, research and development (R&D) sector, investment does not exceed 2% of GDP, while private companies invest only 0.55%.

For now, it is important to look at the economic impact of the disadvantaged classes being massacred. So what looks like a domino effect actually has a primary impact on suburbs and favelas.

The economic recession that we are going through has had effects on millions of families. Today the country has 61.1 million poor and extremely poor which have impact on basic food, on housing, rents and mass unemployment, a negative balance that is in the account of president Bolanaro who should have done more.

Less state intervention does not seem like a smart solution adopted by the state, as the private sector invests almost nothing in research or non-profit activities. For this reason, Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato advises that the unified health system and the constant development of science and research are essential to go through periods like this, since the lack of public investment in health and the demerit of science adopted by populist governments such as Brazilians serve as a vector for social inequality.

More than “solidarity”, these days demand social responsibility. Topics that seem not to be correlated, in times of global crisis such as the one we are going through now with COVID-19, the problem of not strengthening public health and science sheds light. After all, who is missing masks, beds and medicine first? Which countries are having massive access to the vaccine? Will the pharmaceutical industry continue to profit from the world's disgrace?

Capitalism claims to be resilient, but it is visibly crumbling, as it once again demonstrates how the state is directed to meet the interests of the ruling class in meeting primary needs. Furthermore, we are witnessing that Adam Smith's invisible hand and globalization were only able to accelerate social inequalities. This is a moment of renegotiation of society's rules of the game.