Profit Obligation

Why the pandemic may never end

The "good" news first:

Household financial assets in Germany grew by €1 trillion from Q1 2020 to Q2 2021. That's €1,000 billion. Per capita, about €12,000. Overall, Germans have around €7.4 trillion in financial assets as of June 30, 2021, per capita €90,000.

Just under 16% asset growth in 1-½ years. And that with negative, or hardly appreciably above zero attainable interest rates on financial investments.

Probably you noticed that this development starts at the beginning of the pandemic. In many respects, the most consequential event in decades. The economically devastating consequences for entire industries do not seem to have had any detrimental effect on the overall increase in wealth based on financial assets. Let's add to the plague the increasingly threatening climate change, together with the ecological decay processes triggered by it. It has been known for about 50 years what dangers this implies for man and nature. No matter, the main thing is that the monetary wealth grows! What could be the basis for the optimistic assumption that there could be a non-violent, democratic solution for this paradoxical contrast?

With regard to the pandemic, the way described as having no alternative and supported by an overwhelming majority is to vaccinate everyone. I am deliberately leaving out the pros and cons of vaccination, together with the associated discussion about questions of freedom and physical integrity.

In the globalized world, about 30 million people fly around the earth every day. Those traveling by other means must also be added. Pandemics in the 21st century can only be fought globally. Not regionally. The disease control strategy is likely to fail because the poor countries of the South cannot get a vaccine because they lack the money. An international "rule of law" and an economic system that values profits over lives undo what is proclaimed to be desirable in the greatest need: Ending the pandemic worldwide. Vaccinating people everywhere on earth is impossible. Even if everyone wanted it. Although many countries subsidized the development of the Corona vaccines with billions of dollars of taxpayers' money, the guardians of the patents on these vaccines remain the pharmaceutical companies and their capital owners. They dictate the terms, the quantities and the prices. The general public has made it possible to survive the risky entrepreneurial phase before market-ready approval. Nevertheless, the corporate representatives never get tired of presenting the narrative of the private-sector miracle of the entire development story. The "venture capitalists" have no vote in key decisions about how to fight the pandemic. It is not those who need vaccine who get it, but only those who can pay. With fatal consequences: A "vaccine apartheid" is taking place. The low-income countries of the southern hemisphere are almost completely cut off from access to vaccines. 2.5 billion people cannot be vaccinated because they lack money. The laws of the market apply even in hard times. This makes the global strategy of using vaccination to control the pandemic a farce. In countries without sufficient access to vaccines, the virus mutates through the Greek alphabet and travels by airplane to the rich north, which at some point will be almost 100% vaccinated by force, in order to continue its infectious rampage there.

The pharmaceutical lobby, with the help of politicians, prevents the subsidized vaccines from becoming common property (commons) and from being produced affordably anywhere in the world within a very short time. In 1995, the TRIPS Agreement on "Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights" came into force under the umbrella of the WTO (World Trade Organization). TRIPS protects patents worldwide. In 2020, numerous WTO member countries requested the temporary suspension of patent protection for COVID vaccines. Although more than 100 countries support the exemption, the requirement for consensus decisions prevents implementation. The exemption is blocked by the European Union, led by Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Late capitalism, tailored solely to returns on capital, is once again showing its ugliest face. "Late" because we have long since passed the global tipping point of social imbalance, as both the stock and growth of financial assets benefit only an increasingly wealthy minority. This is a phenomenon that capitalism is bound to bring about. Everywhere. The practitioners with expertise, as well as the politicians who believe themselves free from intellectual influence, "are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." (Quoting John Maynard Keynes "General Theory," 1936). A protective armor forged by mainstream economics bounces off all ethical accusations. It is the principle of the economic order, above all attacks, according to which the highest possible "return on capital" is imperative. No matter what the cost. The obligation to vaccinate, which is being discussed in Europe and has already been decided in individual countries, is counteracted by the obligation to make a profit, which has always applied. The goal of combating the pandemic will therefore become unattainable for the global community. Just like the wealth of those profiting from this constellation.

What I can offer you giving hope, in the last month of the year 2021, is to give you a promise: The magazine HUMANE ECONOMY will never get tired to break open the theory which is armoring the existing money and land order (to the latter can be added the patent system, copyrights and the ownership of data) with the ideas we transport and to penetrate it with existing insights for a comprehensive change.