Origins of Covid-19 pandemic- The virus of neoliberalism
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Why the virus outbreak keeps happening at fairly regular intervals? Why China is the ground zero of most virus outbreaks? How and why the sources of most of the virus outbreaks are animals and birds? These are some of the questions, which people are thinking, talking and writing about nowadays. The ensuing panic in the wake of the pandemic has led to several conspiracy theories and narratives-interpreted through nationalist and racist frameworks- around the origin and diffusion of the virus. Conspiracy theories have themselves become a pandemic!!
One of the most virulent conspiracy theories– circulating among masses through social media – around that virus is that it was bio-engineered in a Chinese lab!! This theory or speculation has been debunked by a lot of scientists and research institutes, who have asserted that the concerned virus has a natural origin and probably originated in a wet market of Wuhan province in China. We can cite multiple reasons for this theory finding a dynamic market among common folks. Reasons range from being political- as China is ruled by a communist party; to nationalist – china wants to dominate the world and economy, etc.; to Hollywood epidemic/pandemic movies- which have normalized the notion that most of the virus are invented in some secret labs and then somehow through an accident or due to pure evil action gets released in the world; and finally, to a reason which has a basis in reality- China, particularly South China has been the ground zero of many previous virus outbreaks.
People often go for simple and plain arguments about any phenomenon or event which is in congruence with their socio-economic-political-religious worldview. Also, the workings of the contemporary world in totality is so complex and mystified that it becomes difficult for any common person to dwell deep into any event or phenomenon. These factors are some of the reasons why people readily buy conspiracy theories and are content with what is in front of their eyes; instead of attempting to enter the complex maze of the political economy of the contemporary world.
In popular public perception, epidemics are seen through the paradigm of disease and cure; the health sector approaches epidemics through the paradigm of virology/bacteriology; nation-states approach it through the paradigm of governance; social sciences approach the question by focusing on the social impact and outcome of any epidemic. However, there is a need to approach the question of epidemics in its totality, or through an inter-disciplinary approach, and this forms the subject matter of a book Big Farms Makes Big Flu (2016) by evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace. The book, which essentially is a collection of essays and articles or in the words of the author, is a collection of ‘Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and Nature of Science’ discusses the political economy of epidemics and provides convincing answers to the questions which we raised at the beginning of this article. Though the book is rift with technical terms of his discipline, it does a pretty good job in answering the question posed by the author himself i.e. what of the Virus’s greater context? The book is largely the story of Swine flu but draws out the structural causes behind frequent epidemic/pandemic outbreaks.
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“There are no coincidences in this world”, goes a famous saying. The present Coronavirus also called the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic which has engulfed the entire planet is his name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003. In 2017, a team of researchers led by Shi Zheng Li and Cui Jie of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, after years of research on SARS warned that “another deadly outbreak of SARS could emerge at any time“. It just took exactly two years for this warning to come true!!
Since the SARS outbreak in 2003, we have had several viral outbreaks- both on a national and worldwide scale- at regular intervals in the last two decades. The Swine Flu pandemic in 2009-10, the Ebola Pandemic in 2013, Swine Flu outbreak in India in 2015, the Zika epidemic in 2015-16, the Nipah Outbreak in India in 2018. Why these novel outbreaks do keep happening? Should these different viral outbreaks be seen in isolation with each other or are they all tied into a Gordian knot? Wallace asserts that they are; that there is a huge Gordian knot of Influenza which needs to be cleaved. The node of Gordian knot of influenza according to Wallace is Neo-Liberalism, which the British Journalist and writer George Monbiot describes as “the ideology at the root of all our problems”.
Wallace argues that there are several reasons for the increasing diversity of human-friendly influenza of zoonotic origin in the past fifteen years; the primary reason being the increased interaction between human beings and wildlife. But, haven’t humans and animals interacted for centuries? So what has changed in the last 30 years that has led to repeated outbreaks of zoonotic viruses? Wallace implicates the Agribusiness sector and neoliberalism for the repeated outbreaks and repeatedly asserts that “the very biology of Influenza is enmeshed with the political economy of the business of food” and “the problem of Influenza is systemic and buried deep in political tissue”.
Wallace makes some interesting observations like the evolution of what he calls “veritable zoo” of human-specific influenza is coupled with the spread of deregulation and industrial model of vertically integrated livestock- where livestock are packed one above the other- which originated in the southeastern United States, across the globe. The spread of vertically integrated models across the globe began in the 1970s when Agribusinesses started “moving company operations to the Global South to take advantage of cheap labor, cheap land, weak regulation, and domestic production hobbled in favor of heavily subsidized agro exporting”. The neo-liberalization of animal food sectors had several consequences for as far as the health of both human and animals are concerned.
First, it has led to greater integration of stockbreeding, horticulture, aqua-culture, live-bird market system, and poultry and of course humans; neoliberalism led to increased inter-species communication. Second, despite hosting billions of pigs and poultry, the governments around the world offer no systematic testing and regulation. The animal health surveillance in developing and underdeveloped nations are either underdeveloped or have been degraded by neo-liberalism. Third, it is the government and thereby the taxpayer who pays for the environmental and health damages caused by Factory Farms. The hazards caused by an accidental breach in poultry lagoons or release of pool of feces into river or tributary is picked up by the state; costs of factory farms are routinely externalized. All these factors cause unchecked transmissions of virus strains among different species which leads to the emergence of new strains, more dangerous than the previous ones across the global archipelago of industrial farms.
Moreover, the continued search for new land and resources under the neo-liberal regime, which leads to invasion of forests, has further lead to increased inter-species interaction. The E-bola pandemic which emerged in western Africa is a classic example of this invasion caused by the pandemic. As the natural habitat of fruit bats- the carrier of the Ebola virus- was destroyed by the Palm oil industry, they came in close interaction with human settlements, which led to jumping off the virus from bats to humans. The destruction of natural habitat has also lead to increased interface between migratory birds- the chief carriers of virus- and poultry.
Further, the neo-liberal economic order which has dismantled the public healthcare infrastructure across the globe, especially in the under-developed and developing nations is nothing but just an invitation for epidemics and pandemics. However, the most important critique which Wallace does of the neo-liberal agribusiness model is that of changing the very commodity of their trade i.e. live breathing organisms to maximize their profit. He cites the case of genetically engineered “naked-chicken”, who are highly susceptible to diseases. Naked chicken is born without feathers which cuts down the cost of plucking feathers, thereby maximizing profit!! He also cites experimentation with poultry breeding to increase production. In a farm in Southern Chinese province of Guangdong– a bird flu zone– geese were exposed to a counter-seasonal lighting schedule that induced out-of-season egg-laying, thereby doubling the production!!
In-fact all these conditions are met in several Special Economic Zones of China (also in neighboring countries), making it the ground zero of the emergence of several human-specific viral influenzas.
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China is being held responsible for the outbreak of Coronavirus. The criticisms and accusations leveled against China are motivated by a complex mix of racism, geopolitics, nationalism, and history of previous outbreaks. From accusing Communist China of “manufacturing” the virus to blaming “strange eating habits” of Chinese people, virtual space is replete with racist and political conspiracy theories around the COVID 19 pandemic.
So who is responsible? Is China solely responsible for the outbreak of this virus? Is China solely responsible for this pandemic? The answer is both yes and no. Chinese Governments should be held responsible for both ignoring and hounding Dr. Li Wenliang who identified the virus and issued warnings about it. They should be held responsible for allowing the local epidemic to become a pandemic by not taking proper containment measures. Given the long history of being ground zero for many pandemics, the Chinese authorities could have taken several preventive measures to dismantle the very socio-ecological environment which gave rise to this new virus. All the above negligence’s came after repeated warnings from scientists and researchers about the possibilities of a virus outbreak in the immediate future.
But should the buck stop here? Or do we need to take into consideration the mechanisms that are operating at the broader level of socio-ecological organization which includes how livestock are owned and organized across time and space and its embedded-ness in decisions of government and companies i.e. the totality of the conditions which allow the emergence of virulent influenza in the first place? Should we not implicate the ideology and institutions that have pushed for more and more privatization of the health and social sector, which has left a large section vulnerable? Should we not implicate the United States where the vertical model of Industrial poultry farming first developed and later got supplanted across the word?
If we take into consideration the broader mechanisms which are responsible for the emergence of a veritable zoo of human-friendly viruses then we will have to implicate not only those countries and people where the virus emerged in the first place, but also the entire political economy of organization of production in the first place which has put profit over people. We will have to implicate neo-liberalism, which privatizes profit and socializes loss and disasters.
An edited version of this article was being published in National Herald.
