What gets published in the Lancet nowadays - Neoliberal economics, planetary health, and the COVID-19 pandemic: a Marxist ecofeminist analysis:
Abstract:
Planetary health sees neoliberal capitalism as a key mediator of socioecological crises, a position that is echoed in much COVID-19 commentary. In this Personal View, I set out an economic theory that emphasises some of the ways in which neoliberal capitalism's conceptualisation of value has mediated responses to COVID-19. Using the intersection of ecological, feminist, and Marxist economics, I develop an analysis of neoliberal capitalism as a specific historical form of the economy. I identify the accumulation of exchange value as a central tendency of neoliberal capitalism and argue that this tendency creates barriers to the production of other forms of value. I then analyse the implications of this tendency in the context of responses to COVID-19. I argue that resources and labour flow to the production of exchange value, at the expense of production of other value forms. Consequently, the global capitalist economy has unprecedented productive capacity but uses little of this capacity to create the conditions that improve and maintain people's health. To be more resilient to coming crises, academics, policy makers, and activists should do theoretical work that enables global economies to recognise multiple forms of value and political work that embeds these theories in societal institutions.
A clue as to why this might appear in a medical journal comes at the beginning of the introduction:
Planetary health views human health from the perspective of multiple intersecting systems. This perspective means looking at the ways that human activities have disrupted natural systems and that human systems affect responses to crises. For example, in their manifesto for planetary health, Horton and colleagues argued that neoliberal capitalism deepens many of the current crises faced by communities around the world....
The Horton referred to is of course Richard Horton, who happens to be editor of the Lancet.
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