Covid-19 and the Left: The Tyranny of Fear

Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Introduction: The Tyranny of Fear: the Historical Rupture of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Left’s Response
	Introduction
	The Fetish Character of the Virus and Its Secret
	The Fight Against the Virus as the Fight Against the Right: the Rise of the Left’s Technocratic Fascism
	The Cult of Collectivism
	Outline of the Book
	Notes
	References
Part One Orientation: The Politics, Culture, and Ideology of Fear
	1 From the Void to COVID: Explaining the Left’s Support for Pandemic Authoritarianism
		Introduction
		The Left and the Void
		Ideological Shifts: Vulnerability, Moralism, Emergency
			From Exploitation to Oppression: Vulnerability as the Left’s New Lodestar
			The Domain of Public Health
		Conclusion: Explaining the Lockdown Left
		Notes
		References
	2 The Revenge of the Hyperreal: The Simulation of Crisis and Contemporary Left Politics
		Forgetting Foucault
		‘Positive Biopolitics’
		From Real to Hyperreal
		Climate Lockdowns Will Not Take Place
		Notes
		References
	3 The Return of ‘Doublethink’: How George Orwell’s Dystopia Became the Cue for COVID-19 Ideology and the Left’s Power Grab
		Where Are We Now?
		The Plague Narrative
		Four Or Five Fingers?
		A Cause ‘Greater Than Ourselves’
		Is Logic Anti-Authoritarian?
		Notes
		References
Part Two COVID-19 and Capitalism
	4 The Rise of the COVID-19 Industrial Complex
		Full-spectrum Information Dominance
		Intra-corporate Consolidation
		The Rise of the Biosecurity State
		References
	5 Bureaucratic Momentum and COVID-19 Policies
		Introduction
		The Mistaken Identity of the State
		A Better View of Bureaucracy
		Bureaucratic Momentum and COVID-19 Policies
		Bureaucratic Momentum in Action: the Canadian Case
		The Social Base of the Left
		The Iron Law of Bureaucratic Momentum
		References
	6 COVID-19 and the Emergency Loop of Implosive Capitalism
		The Everything Bubble
		Meta-emergency and Monetary Domination
		Under the Financial Spell
		Systemic Exhaustion
		Ecology of Controlled Demolition
		Towards Global Mass Immiseration
		Notes
		References
Part Three COVID-19 and the Left in Canada, the UK, Germany, and Australia
	7 The Opera of the Phantoms: How the Canadian Political Establishment Memed Itself Into Absurdity
		Introduction
		The Road to Ottawa
		The Rabble at the Gates
		The Left’s Abandonment of Protest
		Aftermaths of a Historic Popular Protest
		Postscript
		Notes
	8 The Professional-Managerial Class in the UK: Managing the ‘Covoid’
		Introduction
		Class Struggle and the PMC as an Intermediary Class
		The ‘Covoid’ and the Management of the Populist Threat
		Brexit and Covid: Revolution and Restoration?
		The PMC Takes Charge
		Conclusion
		Notes
		References
	9 The German Left as Schmittians: How the State of Emergency Became an ‘anti-Fascist’ Paradigm
		Prehistory: Germany’s Biggest Labour Market Reforms of the 2000s
		The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Continuation of Agenda 2010
		The Pandemic State of Emergency
		The Authoritarian Character and the New Understanding of Freedom
		Notes
		References
	10 Middle-Class Consciousness: COVID-19 Measures and Their Social Base in Australia
		Zero Covid and Its Social Base
		The Middle Class as an Object of Analysis in the Social Sciences
		The ‘New Middle Class’ and Its Ideas
		Sink Or Swim: Middle-Class Consciousness and Covid Measures in Australia
		Conclusion
		Notes
		References
Index