THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND AMERICAN NEOLIBERALISM

Abstract

This essay explores how the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the glaring weaknesses of the American neoliberal order. In early 2021, the U.S., with 4% of the world’s population, suffered 20% of the world’s covid-19 cases. The paper examines the factors that made the U.S. uniquely vulnerable to the pandemic: hyper-individualism, high levels of religiosity, ignorance of science, generalized distrust of the government, and the fetishization of the market. These forces produced a society with high levels of income inequality, a tattered social safety net, lack of universal health coverage, a large prison population, and vast numbers of the homeless. The health care crisis gave rise to an economic crisis. Low income communities and people of color are particularly vulnerable. The structural deficiencies of American neoliberalism are exacerbated by the corruption, indifference, and incompetence of the Trump administration, which failed to take the pandemic seriously. Lack of testing, pastors defying social distancing guidelines, forcing low wage workers back to work and the touting of fraudulent cures such as hydroxychloroquine illustrate what happens when a conservative society unused to inconvenience encounters an unseen foe that replicates itself with devastating efficiency.