Capitalism’s Virus

Pandemic! Team Advantage convenes (while practicing Safe Social Distancing) to discuss the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has a great deal to do with capitalism. What contributed to the origins of this virus? How did it spread? In this globalized world, why do we have robust global trade and finance rules, but no equivalent global public health institutions? How does neoliberal policy —which reduced the capacity of the public health systems over decades— fare when pandemics strike? How are governments responding, and how does the incoming batch of money-printing bailouts affect demands for a Green New Deal?