Geopolitics Ana Panademics Luis Britto Garcia

One billion people are confined to quarantine to avoid contracting it Daniel Beasley director of the UN Food Program points out that the world suffers from a famine that affected 135 million people at the beginning of the contagion and 270 million at present

The world is in a global recession which leads the World Trade Organization 0MC to predict by the end of 2020 a decrease in the World Gross Domestic Product of 48 which implies negative magnitudes for almost all economies The total volume of goods traffic will have decreased by 92 by then following the consistent downward trend since 2009

Due to capitalist dynamics the crisis disproportionately hits various regions of the planet the WTO anticipates that North America will fall from a GDP of 21 in 2019 to 44 in 2020 Central and South America from 02 in 2019 to 75 2020 in 15 Europe from 73 to 39 Asia from 24 to 14 for Other Regions from 55 to XNUMX With the generic allusion to North America the WTO conceals the severe decline of the United States the main economy in the region

The less pronounced decline is forecast for Asia driven by China The deepest fall for Central and South America almost equal to that of Europe

The crisis retracts investments and shifts employment towards highly specialized and qualified professions

For Latin America it is illusory to expect that a massive investment of transnational capital will solve its problems which historically has focused on seizing natural resources or acquiring companies or services with captive clienteles at gifted prices in order to auction them off or raise rates disproportionately

According to the WTO for Asia a decline of 45 for exports and 44 for imports is also forecast although less than the decline in them in other regions By presenting statistics by region said World organization conceals the power of the Chinese economy the most important in the Asian region and the world

The most successful countries in controlling the pandemic have also been those that have best managed in the face of the economic crisis Those who have arranged for both to be resolved through free market mechanisms have ended up bogged down in economic depression and contagion

The United States in particular has recently experienced an unstoppable loss of hegemony it is no longer the worlds leading economic power its public debt exceeds 100 of its GDP four million jobs have disappeared in the middle of the year its unemployment rate stands at 133

To compensate for the deficit in the trade balance it resorts to conflictive protectionist measures its military might has been surpassed by Russia and China has the highest number of infected and killed by the coronavirus Most of the European countries face similar situations of worsening economic crises and morbidity

According to Marxs prophecy every crisis drives the concentration of capital in fewer and fewer hands

The Oxfam Report reveals that in January 2020 1 of the worlds population accumulates twice as much wealth as 6900 billion people by multiplying economic difficulties for small and mediumsized companies the pandemic and the crisis make it easier for them to be eaten up by the larger ones more quickly

Not only does the concentration of capital change but also its nature at the beginning of the century the five companies included in the F as the largest in the world operated in the secondary sector of the economy industry and transport General Motors Corporation WalMart Stores Inc Exxon Mobil Corporation Ford Motor Company General Electric Company

Today transnational companies in the tertiary sector communication and services occupy their place Facebook Amazon Apple Microsoft and Google they own about a quarter of the capital of the 14318 most powerful companies on the planet

During the past century economic crises led to wars and these led to the establishment of socialism or fascism

The First World War facilitated the triumph of communism in Russia The ensuing crisis opened the way for Italian fascism German Nazism and Spanish Falangism and finally led to another planetary conflagration which the powers needed to use their vacant capital in arms production and their unemployed and marginalized as soldiers

The Second World War opened the doors for the access to power of the Chinese Communist Party and the beginning of vast processes of decolonization at the same time that it elevated the United States as a hegemonic power and favored the rise of rightwing authoritarianisms in the rest of the world

It also led to the start of an endless crisis and as an attempt to get out of it a no less endless cycle of minor wars essential to revive capitalist investment in armaments the employment of marginalized people as soldiers or mercenaries and the resurgence of fascism

Fascism consists according to von Neumanns classic definition in the absolute complicity between the power of the State and big capital racism xenophobia authoritarianism and the preaching of imperial aggression are invariable complements of this formula

In many countries fascist movements exploit the growing helplessness of the unemployed and impoverished masses diverting their aggressiveness towards ethnic minorities or internal or external cultural divergences