The only way out of the coronavirus crisis is a new economics that doesn't choose between health and wealth

The pandemic has affected our economy in contradictory ways. We are seeing the introduction of social policies tantamount to communism at the same time as workers are being exploited more violently than ever before, writes Slavoj Zizek

'Both versions of corona economy – working at home and delivering packages – are similarly appropriated and imply extra exploitation' (AP)

From today’s standpoint, as we enter July, the period of the first outbreak of coronavirus panic, some three months ago, now appears almost in an nostalgic light: true, we were in full lockdown back then, but we expected the quarantine to last for a month or two and that life would then return to some kind of normal. Even Anthony Fauci told Americans they should look forward to enjoying their summer vacations. We perceived quarantine as a limited time of exception, almost a welcome standstill in our too busy lives when we were able to afford some peace with our families, read books and listen to music, enjoy cooking our meals, knowing that it would be over soon.

Now we are in what some call the “whack-a-mole” stage. Clusters of contagion are constantly popping up here and there in every nation – not to mention countries like the US, Brazil and India, where they are exploding. Only now we are forced to accept that we are entering a new era when we will have to learn to live with this. The situation is open; there is no clear prospect of what direction the epidemics will take – or, as the German virologist Hendrik Streeck succinctly put it, “no second or third wave – we are in a permanent wave.”

We are still all too focused on Covid-19 statistics. Many of us are regularly checking the numbers of infected, dead and recovered on the Worldometer data service. This fascination by the numbers makes us forget the obvious fact that much more persons are dying every day from cancer, heart attacks, pollution, hunger, armed conflicts and domestic violence. If we the Covid-19 virus fully under control, the main cause of our troubles will disappear, but human life will remain full of miseries. In some sense, human life is a misery which ends in a painful way, often with meaningless suffering.