THE MONSTER ENTERS
Covid-19, the Avian Flu, and the Plagues of Capitalism
by Mike Davis
Marxist historian and activist Davis mounts a timely critique of capitalism while recounting the paths of recent pandemics. In 2005, Davis published The Monster at Our Door, about the avian flu, an epidemic that could have been far worse than it was—but was plenty devastating. “Today,” he writes, having revised the book extensively to take into account COVID-19, “as was the case when I wrote Monster fifteen years ago, multinational capital has been the driver of disease evolution.” Globalism has destroyed ecosystems, displaced animals that spawn zoogenic diseases, and built a system of surplus labor marked by “the explosive growth of slums and concomitantly of ‘informal employment’ ”—to say nothing of a global pharmaceutical regime that develops only the most profitable drugs, not inexpensive antivirals and vaccines. We have yet to see the pharmaceutical response to COVID, and even if firms and research labs across the globe are rushing to develop a vaccine, that doesn’t blunt the force of the author’s fiery argument. What is certain is that the officials in the current government who took seriously the possibility of pandemic disease—including Rex Tillerson and John F. Kelly—have since departed, leading Davis to conclude, memorably, “the Trump administration is its own fifth column.” Readers versed in Marxist history will understand the reference. It takes no special background to appreciate Davis’ charge that the administration wasted time dithering, failing to develop test kits and preventive gear and choosing to “rely on the President’s rapport with corporate leaders rather than nationalize production as in wartime.” As always, then, follow the money. One need not subscribe to Davis’ politics to appreciate his title’s harkening to the science fiction movies of the 1950s, with an alien monster lurking outside to beg a pressing question: “will we wake up in time?” Provocative and controversial, as always, and a worthy addition to the literature of plague and pestilence.