The Paradox of Polycrisis: Capitalism, History, and the Present

Abstract

The cascading crises of the novel coronavirus pandemic era are seen, by some observers, as the constitutive components of a broad “polycrisis.” It is a useful term, but, as some have pointed out, while it registers the fact of coinciding crises it does little to explain the interaction of those crises. Indeed, polycrisis is a misleading conceptualization of the pandemic era in part because the cascading character of the present crisis is a function of a shared ultimate cause. What we have been experiencing is best understood as a crisis of capitalism, the result of industrial humanity’s deformed relationship with the natural world. This is more specific than an obvious contending description that would render the present crisis in anthropogenic terms, as a result of human activity. Instead, the present crisis is the product of specific forms of human activity and particular elements of humanity, namely, capital. This being the case, we might speak instead of a broad, structural crisis that is, in turn, experienced as a crisis cascade. This “paradox of polycrisis” has historiographical implications, and this article concludes by suggesting how contemporary historians can confront the crisis and write history for our times.