The “Pandemic” as Preemptive Counterrevolution

Abstract

The argument of this piece is that the Covid-19 ‘pandemic’ is a counterrevolutionary transformation of capitalist society at the level of the system as a whole. Its actual health emergency features and the remedies prescribed are too contradictory to see it as anything else than a political project. In past transformations towards a ‘new normal’ a formula of governance or concept of control arose from the processes of class formation. More generally the means that the development of the productive forces placed into the hands of the existing ruling classes first, tended to accrue to subaltern classes as well in due course. With the Information (IT) Revolution, this would also be the case if it were allowed to evolve organically. However, since the collapse of Soviet state socialism, concepts of control rely on largely fictional scenarios of which Covid-19 is an example. The World Economic Forum has in fact provided a detailed blue-print for the ‘new normal’ to be executed under the guise of (but in fact unrelated to) the ‘pandemic’ to counter revolutionary developments preemptively.