Covid-19: The Great Unequalizer
Covid-19: The Great Unequalizer

Author(s): Göran Therborn
Subject(s): Social differentiation, Health and medicine and law, Geopolitics
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Covid-19; pandemic; landmark; planetary simultaneity; geopolitical; social effect; privileges; post-Western century;
Summary/Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2021 will be a landmark of world history, because of its planetary simultaneity and because of its geopolitical and social effects, which have had more impact than its contagion and mortality. In the latter respects, the so-called Spanish flu of 1918-1922 was more devastating. The pandemic has been, and is, an experience of suffering and loss for millions of people around the planet. For us, privileged survivors, it has been a life-engraving learning experience. It has shown us the historical impact of contingency, the planetary commons and its eradicable divisions, a sharpening of social and political alternatives, and an acceleration of the current dynamic of the world, towards ever more inequality and privileges for a few, towards a post-Western century.

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