Coronavirus Crisis or a New Stage of the Global Crisis of Capitalism?

ABSTRACT

The emergence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have triggered a major economic crisis. Its depth and complexity resemble the Great Depression of the 1930s. This article argues that the pandemic has brought to the surface a set of contradictions that were present in the world economy, such as the trend to secular stagnation, as well as deflation and deglobalization of economies. Before the virus emerged, capitalism maintained a situation of precarious and fragile economic growth, combined with unstoppable speculation in the financial and real estate markets. The economies were and are sustained by the ‘artificial lung’ of the central banks that inject liquidity into the system through programs of quantitative easing of cheap and easy money. The course of the current recession is still very uncertain, but there is no doubt that it will be very deep and that a V-shaped recovery is unrealistic. © 2020 SAGE Publications.