From Crisis to Capital: Reading the Pandemic through Klein’s Shock Doctrine

Abstract

The experience of living through a pandemic has altered our perceptions of man- nature interactions beyond our imagination. This paper aims to trace the impact of Covid 19 on environment in the light of the regeneration of life in this planet due to the reduction of human interferences on planet earth. The pandemic forced humanity to rethink issues related to sustainability, including food security for the posterity. It locates the historical roots of environmental degradation in disaster capitalism and argues that despite the hollowness of the human centred concept of development, the capitalist dispensations around the world have resisted the communities and governments in realising the dangers of Anthropocene, seeking alternate future. The paper explains how the interest of the capitalist class is advanced through Klein’s Shock Doctrine scuttling the pressing demand created by the Covid 19 to reinvent the world by making it calm, greener and prosperous.