Just signed a contract, a book titled
Pandemics as a Matter of a System Crisis – Precarity of Society
Springer Nature is the publisher, Prekarisierung und sociale Entkopplung the title of the series, edited by Rolf Hepp and others.
The following are some thoughts, arguing that the topic is still relevant, whatever the next news concerning the virus will be:
Afterthought
While finalising the script, already answering some questions after having submitted a first version, and thus with some time having passed since first taking up the work, it becomes clear to me that than pandemics helped to highlight part of the polity-virus but even without such an extreme and extremely manifest threat the Precarity of Society as System Crisis is sadly obvious.
Sure, Corona is still occasionally issued as threat, new variants striking – but by and large the pandemics are not a topic on the political agenda anymore. This does not mean that the socio-economic consequences are solved. Going together with other major economic crises and hazards small shops are under severe pressure; social provisions and services – be it health care, child care, education and also the capacities of municipal administrations – are overburdened and even standard obligatory acts are hugely delayed, offices closed for the public, allowing staff to catch up with the growing piles of files; the housing situation a matter of serious concern – and the government trying to cushion the problems by occasional grants to relieve the burden on certain groups.
The hopes for a fundamental change, however, burst like soap bubbles: While climate activists are blocking roads and motor highways, highlighting the dangers of global warming, asking for roundtables and negotiations, they are in many cases criminalised and/or met by aggressive measures. At the same time, private transport is fostered, now focusing on electromobility while negotiating the reform of public transport and the relevant pricing systems are suffering from the same weakness as they had been shown above in relation to Covid 19. In Berlin, after a successful referendum I support of the socialisation of the property of large housing corporations according article 15 Basic Law, there are again and again new hurdles erected: socialisation cannot become real, if it goes beyond ruinous payment of selective relief funds …
The emperor’s new dress showing that the ruler is still trapped in the structures of the small princedoms. He only reacts with fear, but without strategy, to the fact that the people have turned their backs on him. In the ‘positive’ case, it is addicted to individualism and withdraws more or less depressively into itself or the family as own little princedom; in the negative case, it follows the populist pied pipers (although such an allusion to the fairy tale of the Pied Piper of Hamlinneeds some qualification). – Still, a certain loyalty to the system is, of course, still maintained by the fact that the powers – be it in business, government and the mass media – still succeed in building up an external enemy. If, though, today’s challenges are global, not knowing any borders, it would be wiser to focus on real cooperation.
COMMEDIA DELLA VITA OR PÁNTA RÊI'S FIRM GROUND 