Beyond the Image of COVID-19 as Nature's Revenge : Understanding Globalized Capitalism through an Epidemiology of Money

Hornborg, AlfLund University,Lunds universitet,Humanekologi,Institutionen för kulturgeografi och ekonomisk geografi,Samhällsvetenskapliga institutioner och centrumbildningar,Samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten,Human Ecology,Department of Human Geography,Departments of Administrative, Economic and Social Sciences,Faculty of Social Sciences (author)

Public discussion of the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic has reproduced several recurrent and interrelated topics in discourses on sustainability and the Anthropocene. First, there is an ambiguous concern—sometimes ominous, sometimes hopeful—that the pandemic will precipitate radical social transformation or even collapse. Second, there is widespread reflection over the risks of economic globalization, which increases vulnerability and undermines local food security. Third, the pandemic is frequently imagined as nature’s revenge on humankind. This metaphor reflects a fundamental conceptual dualism separating nature and society that continues to constrain our efforts to understand the challenges of sustainability. To help transcend the epistemological and ontological dichotomy of nature versus society, the article proposes an epidemiological approach to all-purpose money. Conventional money is an artifact with far-reaching repercussions for global society as well as the biosphere. To approach it as the source of behavioral algorithms with severely detrimental consequences for both social and ecological systems might provide a middle ground for natural and social science.

HumanekologiInstitutionen för kulturgeografi och ekonomisk geografi (creator_code:org_t)

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SOCIAL SCIENCES: SOCIAL SCIENCES; and Other Social Sci ...; and Social Sciences ...

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