This is a structural feature of the #hyperkapitalism. 'The corona pandemic will have a huge impact not only on health, but also on the economy and on the finances of many people. A few questions to Ewald Engelen, Professor of Financial Geography at the University of Amsterdam, about the financial consequences of corona for citizens.

What does this epidemic mean financially for an employee, if you get sick? To begin with, of course, there are the medical costs themselves, for example, for medicines or hospitalization...

'That's one. And that is not well regulated everywhere, even in the West — for example, in the United States, where insurance only belongs to a certain type of permanent employment. However, 27 million people in the US do not have such an appointment, and so they are already completely uninsured for medical costs. And that's a lot, out of a population of about 350 million.”

And in addition, there is a problem in non-payment of sick days. In America, paid sick leave is far from obvious.

'Yes. But also here in the Netherlands. If you do not have a permanent position but are self-employed, for example, you do not have income if you do not work. About 40 percent of the Dutch workforce is a so-called flexworker. You're talking about more than three million people, of which more than one million are self-employed.

For people themselves it is a big problem to get sick without income, but also collectively we get a huge blow from this, yet? If people can't stay home with a virus, because they can't pay the rent...

“If you do not take good care of others, they will not be able to see a doctor, and they will not be able to report sick, because there must be bread on the shelf. And with that you eventually get a further spread of the infection. That's the big disadvantage of the so-called gig-economy, for the people working for Uber, Foodora and other platforms. They can't stop working because there's no safety net.

'It is therefore also a collective interest that everyone in one way or another falls under a sickness insurance scheme and a sickness leave scheme. In other words, it is a collective interest to have something of a welfare state. It is deeply sad that we must rediscover this ancient wisdom of people like Bismarck, Beveridge and Drees. Including the European Social Democrats. '

If you do not want to provide insurance for everyone out of solidarity, then in the end it is just very bad for yourself?

'Yes. You can clearly see here the perverse effects of neoliberal hyperindividualism, sung by zealots like Ayn Rand. '

In the Netherlands, everyone is always insured for the medical costs, right?

'This may be mandatory, but at the same time we also know that — since the introduction of the new health insurance system in 2006 — contributions and own contributions have risen dramatically. Since 2006 with more than fifty percent. That is much harder than inflation. At the same time, the own contribution has also risen sharply. As a result, there are more and more uninsured people around in the Netherlands. About 25 thousand Dutch people are uninsured, while more than 300 thousand people have significant arrears on their insurance policy. '

People are then going to avoid care because of the too high own contribution. Only, I thought that the health insurance itself was mandatory and was always guaranteed, for example, when you get into the assistance?

“It may be mandatory, but is it enforceable? 'Mandatory Insurance' is all very nice and nice, but if you can't afford it, you just don't take it. And then you just hope that you never have to touch care.”

And the other side — whether or not to pay on when you're sick?

'Also in the Netherlands you have more and more people with what is called 'different contracts'. That's a wide range of contracts, but what characterizes all those contracts is that they give fewer rights and protection. Getting sick leave paid — that is no longer true — for an increasing number of employees in the Netherlands.

'One in seven employees are self-employed, while four out of ten employees are so-called flexworkers. Self-employed workers do work that used to be done in the workplace, but they have now become quasi-independent. And therefore cannot claim any further payment in case of illness. '

I read a petition from Amazon employees asking for sick leave because of the corona crisis; and even a break so they can wash their hands without being punished for loss of production...

“What Amazon does in America is the new logistics way wholesale and retail operate. But that has also become common in the Netherlands. The number of vans that drive around the Netherlands, not from Amazon but Bol.com, Zalando or other companies, and that is manned by self-employed workers, has increased enormously here too.

“And all those employees, just like in the fulfilment centers at Amazon, are squeezed out as much as possible. Every minute has to be accounted for; a moment of talking or having a coffee is all cut out. Production needs to be made as much as possible. And do not think that in the distribution boxes of Zalando or Bol.com is different.

Neoliberals may now say: 'Yes, but that's what those people choose for themselves. That's not my suit-an.” What do you say to them?

'Well, only very harsh neoliberals will say that. But most of the Dutch liberals are what I call more 'vegan neoliberal': a herbivorous neoliberal, not a carnivorous. They will somehow see a task here for the government, which should help to cope with it with income compensation. That will be a solution.”

What would your solution be if you were allowed to decide?

'In the short term, I don't know what to do about it.. But what I think is very important is that we are not going to see this as an incident.. As far as I am concerned, both the financial crisis of 2008 and the corona pandemic of today are an intrinsic feature of the global, hyper-capitalist economy.

'It is all a consequence of excessive complexity, excessive scale and excessive interconnectedness. The lesson we can draw out is: it must be closer, it must be smaller and it must be less complex. '

So then you take on the entire global chain?

“All that must be on the slope. And that's going to happen either in a way or in a bad way.. Because we're going to have to put it together in a different way, or it's going to collapse on its own, uncontrollably,. My expectation is that such pandemics will occur much more frequently, and that, in the long run, global chains will prove to be far too costly. Companies will opt for re-nationalisation or at least re-regionalisation of their production. '

Because globalisation does bring great success but at the same time has so many disruptions that it is ultimately too expensive?

“Globalisation is not a success at all! You can only think of that when you say something like 'there are three or four hundred thousand Chinese in the middle class'. And that you call it a success of globalisation.

“But the rise of the middle class in China and India has been bought at the price of de-industrialization in Western Europe and North America, of forty years of income stagnation in Western Europe and North America and of sharply rising class contradictions. At the price of increasing income and wealth inequality in Western Europe and North America, and of steady social rise in Western Europe and North America.

'At the price of a great deal of political dissatisfaction which, unfortunately, is mainly mobilized by xenophobic right-wing populism — because the social democracy has renounced the class struggle and is only doing identity politics.

'And — last but not least — at the price of a planet going to hell. And that last argument, of course, is simply the most important. We're all gonna go to hell. Our pollution takes place in China. It can't go on like this! We really need to stop that.. Sadly or maliciously. That's the lesson of corona. And I fear with great fear that we will not learn that lesson. That we will have to wait until the next epidemic takes place. And I predict you, it's going to happen irrevocably.”

So my question — 'how are we to help and receive people who are now uninsured or who are not receiving wage' — is that what you see as sticking emergency patches to the deep wound of globalisation?

'It's symptom control, and very important symptom control! It is desperately needed. But we have to realize that it is not the solution.

'The underlying problem is the global supply chains, the global production chains. That's the problem. Those are too complex. For example, we know that a Mercedes-Benz consists of 2300 parts. They are made all over the world. And a large part of it, especially the simple parts — gears, ball bearings — are made in China.

'These are then transported via cheap, tax-subsidised fuel oil in large quantities by container ship to Europe and the US. With all the pollution that entails. That needs to be stopped. We now see the vulnerability. Economically, it is extremely fragile, and we already know that it is ecologically very vulnerable. '

Now a lawyer for the devil: how can a pandemic be prevent by less globalization of production?

'Cause then you can keep it local. As a result, it is not a pandemic. That's the definition of a pandemic: a worldwide spread of an infectious, human-threatening virus. We will always keep viruses, which are already as old as humanity. Viruses belong to us. But that a pandemic, one virus strain, manages to lower the Gross Domestic Product globally by percentage? That has everything to do with those global supply chains. '

Finally, on this' plaster ': what should we do in each country for people who are not insured or who do not have paid leave?

'Benefits. Hoppa. The government must do so; it is obliged to its citizens to provide a safety net. Just as the ECB has announced it will do for European banks: hundreds of billions of euros to prevent banks from going bankrupt. As far as I'm concerned, governments are not there for spoiled bankers, and they are for poor hospitality workers.

'Only, don't lose sight of the underlying problem. Do not lose yourself in symptom control. Because that's what we're going to do later, I'm afraid — we see it as “an incident.”. But it's not. This is a structural feature of hypercapitalism.”

Ewald Angelen on corona and the perversion of hyper-capitalism
By
Marieke Hoogwout -
13 March 2020