The
pictures could have been hardly more dramatic on 2 March 2020. Syrian refugees
in a fragile boat in open sea are desperate for help and yet they are
greeted with canon fire by a hostile Greek coastguard. The day fire was opened
on vulnerable people on the EU’s border is the day, the European project lost
its moral authority. How did it happen that a project established to overcome
war between European countries had lost its moral compass to such an extent?
The
global economy is yet again under severe pressure. While it was the global
financial market crisis, which shook the global economy to its core in 2007/2008,
it is now the coronavirus, which has increasingly undermined capitalist
accumulation. With countries forced to implement strong control measures, closing
their borders and asking people to stay at home, the global economy based on
production in global value chains is more and more under pressure. Job losses
in the airlines industry are likely to be only the first signs of rising
unemployment with the whole travel industry under immediate pressure. As in
2007/2008, governments are committed to investing large amounts of money in
order to keep the economy afloat for the benefit of everyone, as they argue.
Nevertheless, what can we learn from the experience of more than ten years ago?
