The crisis has allowed us to reappropriate concrete aspects (probably for many not so much...): the economic benefit for the bourgeoisie is more important than the health of the workers (both in Lombardy and in Euskal Herria) or the dependence of the employers of many governments, for example.

Disasters have always been an opportunity for business. The most passionate capitalists know how to read and develop new business opportunities in post-earthquake reconstruction (like Haiti), giving logistics to the occupying army (in Halliburton in Iraq) or arming wars (Basque weaponry, without moving here…). On this occasion, for example, the failure of some small and medium-sized enterprises, beyond their impact on the local economy, will allow companies that are continuing to expand further. The massive purchase of shares being carried out by some large economic groups is nothing more than the exercise of the option.

At the macro level, this pandemic offers the possibility of trying to recover the breathing of the capitalist system, weakened by its contradiction, in different ways. Covid-19 supposes the “cleaning” of a part of the non-functional population from the logic of the market, being the elderly and with pathologies the most vulnerable in the face of the attack on the virus. These sectors are the least profitable for the system, generating little market value, consuming little and assuming large public resources (at least in states with an acceptable public pension and health system). Covid-19 brings to mind another disease: flight. According to some unproven theories, it could have been designed to eliminate the remaining population, especially in Africa. I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories and I'm not going to see if he came out of a Chinese laboratory Covid-19 by surprise or on purpose or if the Pentagon or U.S. military forces are behind it (this last possibility may be a paradox if we look at the impact of the virus in the US). However, we must not forget the lack of scruples that have historically been shown by the defenders of democracy, freedom and human rights to experiment with the populations: atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, depleted uranium in Iraq and the Balkans, incineration of syphilis and gonorrhea in Guatemala, dissemination of hemorrhagic denuvenum in Cuba, as well as the military population in Lebas...... It has been shown that the high-ambition massif heads, integrated into the U.S. power elites, are able to kill billions of people.

In addition to the reduction of the “leftover” population, the pandemic offers the possibility of cracking capitalism itself, condemned to its future suicidal flight: removing more, producing more, consuming more; increasingly and with less resources in a world. The necessary accumulation of capital, integrated in the DNA of capitalism, carries with it the seed of its unfeasibility. The contradictions of the world of the system, which at other historic times were decided through world wars, may be exacerbated, albeit in a short period of time, by the shaking caused by a pandemic and by the subsequent reorganization of powers (between powers and productive sectors). Possibility of reinforced pruning of aged tree.

At both state and local level (such as the EU), uncertainty and fear (sometimes overestimated) generated by the seriousness of the situation, offer economic powers the possibility of misleading their power through the implementation of concrete policies. Naomi Klein explained the doctrine of shock in the documentary in a very understandable way. The pandemic favors the reduction of labor rights and freedoms, forcing the working class to accept more precariousness in a new, generalized attempt to raise more capital gains. A good opportunity to continue dismantling the welfare state and to increase social control. In the name of the economy, they are going to demand a sacrifice, imagining that the fate of the workers is linked to the rise of the bourgeoisie.

At the social level, the confinement imposed and the subsequent social control measures (geolocation, limitation of movements – if not to go to produce…) are a unique test field for future interventions, to fight an epidemic or to control a social uprising (Chile is there, even if it is confined…). Beyond the essential measures to reduce contact, the situation we live in opens the possibility to social experiments, with their sociological, psychological, media or consumption components... The manifestations of the Spanish army are not outside this logic in the streets of Pamplona and some towns. Although they are probably not foreseen, they will take advantage of the opportunity to improve interventions as soon as it is deemed necessary to limit the movement of the population.

Covid-19 is a plague of opportunity for an economic elite that seeks to increase the rate of performance above lives. Let us have no doubt about how to take advantage of it. However, the crisis also opens up opportunities for the organized people to learn and strengthen the struggle for aspects that have been manifested: the valorization of care, the defense of health and public services, the awareness of nearby and rational consumption models, the value of collective organization or the construction of another socioeconomic model for the people and sovereignty. Of the opportunities generated by the crises, changes have also been channeled in favor of the people, always with the bases previously prepared for change (training, organization, struggle…). Let us be aware of the threats and weaknesses, as well as of our strengths and opportunities.