#237 | House Of Cards: COVID-19 & The Blow To Globalization w/ John Feffer

Intro: 13:55 | Book Pre-sale

In this episode, I speak with John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) at the Institute for Policy Studies. We discuss the impact the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has had on the global economic system, as laid out in his article ‘Will the Coronavirus Kill Globalization?’ published at FPIF and CounterPunch.

There are plenty of adequate resources currently available on the nature of the coronavirus, including how it spreads, the common symptoms to look out for, and the demographics most likely to suffer and potentially die from exposure to it. What needs to be explored a bit more is the impacts this global pandemic has had and will continue to have on the global economic system as numerous governments respond to this public heath emergency. I ask John to provide some insight into the impacts this virus has had on globalization at large, with whole sectors of the global supply chain experiencing dramatic shortages as numerous economic sectors shut down, impeding international trade into the foreseeable future. 

As the impacts of this pandemic play out over the next several months (this is just the beginning, folks), the “house of cards” that is the global capitalist system is revealing how the precarious this whole arrangement really is, with systemic issues starkly presenting themselves as medical staff struggle to adequately respond the influx of infected patients in hospitals and clinics around the globe and stock markets crash. John compares the responses of each nation grappling with this crisis, with some of his harshest criticism saved for the United States and the Trump Administration in their astounding incompetency and lack of preparedness in the face of this crisis. John also provides some historical context, pointing to the Spanish Flu epidemic preceding the end of WWI, killing up to 50 million people:

“This last pandemic was one of the factors behind the collapse of the first wave of modern globalization. Prior to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the world had never been more tightly connected with steamships, trains, and the telegraph serving as the connective tissue. Trade as a proportion of GDP stood at 14 percent on the eve of the war. 

The devastation of World War I followed by the flu epidemic dealt a heavy blow to world trade and economic integration. The global economic depression of the 1920s, the rise of various types of nationalism, and a second world war ensured that, by 1945, trade as a proportion of GDP had dropped to a mere 5 percent.” (http://bit.ly/fpifcorona)

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is also the author of the dystopian novel ‘Frostlands,’ the stand-alone sequel to ‘Splinterlands.’ He is a senior associate at the Asia Institute in Seoul and has been both a Writing Fellow at Provisions Library in Washington, DC and a PanTech fellow in Korean Studies at Stanford University.

Episode Notes:

- Read ‘Will the Coronavirus Kill Globalization?’: http://bit.ly/fpifcorona

- Learn more about John and his work: http://www.johnfeffer.com / https://fpif.org / https://ips-dc.org

- Purchase John’s books: http://bit.ly/3d3lSFy

- Some educational materials on the coronavirus: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus / https://youtu.be/cZFhjMQrVts / http://bit.ly/2vtwVXG / http://bit.ly/33mLxok / http://bit.ly/38PbSw9

- Songs featured in this episode are “Curfew” and “Blood Moon” by Fatima Al Qadiri from the album Brute.