Governments monopolies and COVID-19 crisis the pandemic that threatens the futur

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument¶

The central thesis is that the COVID-19 pandemic is not a natural disaster but a crisis produced and exacerbated by the capitalist mode of production. The article argues that the pandemic has exposed the fundamental irrationality of a system that subordinates public health to private profit, and that the ruling classes' response — prioritising monopoly profits, protecting intellectual property, and competing for vaccine development — demonstrates the impossibility of reforming capitalism to meet human needs. The pandemic, the author claims, has performed the work of "the old mole of history," accelerating the organic crisis of capitalism and opening a period in which the choice is reduced to "socialism or destruction of humanity."

Theoretical Grounding¶

The analysis draws directly on Lenin's theory of imperialism as developed in Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, particularly the dominance of monopolies and finance capital, the division of the world among international trusts, and the fusion of monopoly capital with the state. The article applies this framework to the contemporary healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors, demonstrating that the concentration of production has reached levels Lenin could only anticipate.

The argument also rests on Marx's analysis of commodity production — that production under capitalism is oriented toward exchange-value and profit, not use-value or human need. The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is implicit in the explanation of why research into pandemic preparedness was abandoned after SARS and MERS: the epidemic was not sufficiently profitable to sustain investment. The concept of fictitious capital is not deployed explicitly, but the analysis of the opioid crisis — where monopoly profits were extracted through the deliberate creation of addiction — illustrates how the drive for profit overrides even basic safety considerations.

The article situates itself within the Marxist tradition that treats the state as an instrument of class rule, not a neutral arbiter. The FDA, EMA, and other regulatory bodies are shown to be thoroughly subordinated to monopoly interests, from the revolving door between Purdue Pharma and the FDA to the relaxation of safety standards for COVID-19 vaccines.

Conjunctural Relevance¶

The article was written in June 2020, at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, and its conjunctural analysis is remarkably prescient. It identifies several dynamics that have since become central:

The race for vaccines as geopolitical competition: The article names the specific actors — Moderna, Cansino Biologics, Gilead — and notes that the US and China were competing for prestige and market share rather than collaborating. This has been borne out by the subsequent "vaccine nationalism" and the inequitable global distribution of doses.
The state's role in underwriting monopoly profits: The article documents how governments relaxed regulatory standards and provided massive subsidies to pharmaceutical companies, a pattern that continued with Operation Warp Speed and similar programmes.
The class character of the crisis: The article provides data showing that healthcare is the fifth-largest sector in the Fortune Global 500, with US-based multinationals dominating. It argues that workers bore the brunt of the pandemic while billionaires profited — a pattern confirmed by subsequent wealth inequality data.
The opioid crisis as a precursor: The detailed case study of Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family demonstrates that the pandemic was not an isolated failure of capitalism but a continuation of a pattern in which public health is sacrificed to monopoly profit.

The article also anticipates the economic crisis that would follow, arguing that COVID-19 detonated contradictions that had been accumulating since 2008: overaccumulation, falling productive investment, and financial speculation.

Where the Argument Continues¶

The article leaves several threads that are developed elsewhere in the IDOM corpus:

The political response to the pandemic: The article calls for the expropriation of the pharmaceutical monopolies and the socialisation of healthcare, but does not elaborate on the concrete transitional demands or the strategy for building working-class power in the pandemic context. These questions are taken up in subsequent IDOM articles on the need for a workers' government and the fight for a socialist health service.
The economic crisis: The article states that the crisis will make 2008 "seem like child's play" but does not provide a detailed analysis of the mechanisms of the crisis — the role of debt, the financial system, or the tendency of the rate of profit. These are developed in other IDOM pieces on the political economy of the pandemic.
The international dimension: The article focuses on the US and European healthcare monopolies but does not fully explore the impact of the pandemic on the Global South, particularly India, Brazil, and Africa. Later IDOM articles address the catastrophic consequences of the pandemic in these regions.
The revolutionary perspective: The article ends with the "socialism or barbarism" formulation but does not analyse the concrete balance of class forces or the prospects for revolution in specific countries. These questions are taken up in Against the Current episodes and in the RCI's political resolutions.

Connections¶

Lenin, Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The theoretical foundation for the analysis of monopoly capitalism and the fusion of state and capital.
Marx, Capital Volume 1: The analysis of commodity fetishism and the subordination of use-value to exchange-value is implicit throughout.
Trotsky, The Revolution in Spain: Quoted in the article to explain the historical trajectory of Spanish decline, but also relevant to the broader argument about how capitalism's historical progressiveness is exhausted.
Chris Harman, A People's History of the World: Cited for the demographic impact of colonisation on the Americas, and relevant to the article's argument that pandemics have historically coincided with turning points in social development.
Engels, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific": The "socialism or barbarism" formulation is the article's concluding framework.
Other IDOM articles: The article should be read alongside IDOM's analyses of the economic crisis, the state's response to the pandemic, and the fight for a socialist health service. The RCI's Against the Current podcast episodes on the pandemic provide the political-strategic elaboration that this article's theoretical-economic analysis requires.

Key Quotes¶

"The inability of all governments in the world to face the COVID-19 pandemic has been clear from the beginning, displaying the anarchy that characterises the market economy, its inability to look ahead and its exhaustion as a progressive system."
"In the pharmaceutical industry, the fight to obtain new patents for novel therapies, far from promoting knowledge and strengthening the fight against diseases, seeks only to guarantee high prices and monopolistic profits."
"The qualitative difference between the COVID-19 crisis and all the previous pandemics, including the one caused by the Spanish flu of 1918-1920, is that today, for the first time in the history of humanity, there are the necessary technological and scientific means to anticipate an epidemic emergency and combat it. The biological disaster that yesterday was unpredictable and uncontrollable, today is a direct product of the incapacity of the bourgeois system."
"The accident of COVID-19 has performed the work of the old mole of history, which for years moved hardly perceived, and in a few months has taken a giant leap, bringing to light all the contradictions of capitalism."
"Behind the 'institutional explanation' lies their true objective: by any means possible, to avoid responding to these two main questions: Would we already have adequate (antiviral) vaccines for COVID-19 if we had heeded the researchers' warnings? Why were the necessary resources and funding not being dedicated to preventing what today has become a harsh reality?"
"The dilemma that humanity faces is the same that Frederick Engels anticipated more than 150 years ago: 'Socialism or Barbarism'. Today, in the 21st century, this acquires an even sharper character and is reduced to: socialism or destruction of humanity."