CHINESE WAY OF LIFE

A critical unknown is how many mild or asymptomatic cases occur. If large numbers of infections are below the radar, that complicates attempts to isolate infectious people and slow spread of the virus. But on the positive side, if the virus causes few, if any, symptoms in many infected people, the current estimated case fatality rate is too high. (The report says that rate varies greatly, from 5.8% in Wuhan, whose health system was overwhelmed, to 0.7% in other regions.)

SLAVOJ ZIZEK—Another weird phenomenon that we can observe is the triumphant return of capitalist animism, of treating social phenomena like markets or financial capital as living entities. If one reads our big media, the impression one gets is that what we should really worry about are not thousands who already died (and thousands more who will die) but the fact that “markets are getting nervous.” The coronavirus is increasingly disturbing the smooth running of the world market and, as we hear, growth may fall by two or three percent.

An essential element to explain the successes of China is its agricultural policy. China is one of the few countries in the world that has guaranteed access to agricultural land for its farming population. After the revolution, agricultural land came into government hands and every farmer was allocated a piece of land. That measure applies to this day. The agricultural issue in China is so pressing because the country has to feed almost 20 percent of the world’s population with only 7 percent of the fertile agricultural land. To give an idea of what this means: in China there is a quarter of a hectare of agricultural land per inhabitant, in India double that area and in the US 100 times as much.

Seems like Google, a corporate giant that has eagerly collaborated with the US government in fighting “fake news” (read: silence dissident anti-imperialist news), and was happy to apply Trump’s trade sanctions on China is now reaping the whirlwind, as it richly deserves.

JEFF J. BROWN—When a pendulum is far to one side, it tends not toward middle ground but toward its extreme opposite.  Counter-culture tragically replaced by full-on tweet-culture, the room pulsed with interruptions, nano-scaled attention spans, and sophomoric appeals for repetitions, rephrasings – even debate! – of Guy’s well substantiated points. Breathtaking.  Like visiting a glacier that isn’t there anymore. Humans have never, ever been more in need of acute neocortical functioning.  I fear it is no coincidence that our controlled and censored western culture precludes it.