The pandemic has probably done humanity a last favour.

It has revealed that the fairy tale of the "incredible increase in the quality of life" spread around the world by the capitalists is a huge lie.

It has been shown that those who have destroyed the landscapes, villages, hamlets and subsistence local economies and turned the people they drove into the cities into "customers of the market" with their expropriation plans, have no strategy for the future and live only for the day.

It has turned out that the dozens of large and small states that want to bring "peace and stability" to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, Libya and Yemen do not even have respirators, respirators, medicines and other protective equipment in their hospitals.

Those who spend billions of dollars on war planes, rockets, tanks and bombs have not even thought of having masks made from one piece of cloth.

The states competing for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, sending satellites into space and producing all kinds of drones, spending a large part of their budgets on aircraft, tanks and artillery, have not given the slightest thought to producing disinfectants and hygiene products.

With their words and actions, they have once again made it clear that they are putting people in the place of a "herd". The "war triage" as the "solution" of Italy or the "herd immunity" of Great Britain is a clear proof of the view of capitalist modernity on people and an expression of despair.

The Leviathan, which in normal times collects taxes without distinction between workers and the unemployed, poor and rich, young and old, begins, with the spread of the virus, to keep lists of those who are to die first.

Covid-19 reveals the fact that the real evil that is concealed under the cover of "free market economy" or "liberalism" is indeed capitalism, and that it is meaningless to cover up the truths by distorting idioms and concepts.

Covid-19 has shown once again that the state is a parasite that makes people work non-stop for 60 to 65 years, promises to pay for their care and needs in old age, but now explains that although taxes have been collected for 65 years, no ventilators, medicines or care can be offered.

Together we have seen states like the US, China, Russia, Great Britain, Germany and France, which declare themselves responsible for the world order and humanity, becoming helpless, insignificant and ineffective objects.

The US President Donald Trump still believes magnanimously that he can continue his system, which is on the brink of the abyss, as if nothing had happened, without recognizing its despair. He trusts in the people’s lack of memory.  With the dominant arrogance of wealth, he declares: "We cannot allow this to become a long-term problem."

Trump's economic advisor Larry Kudlow confirms this with the words: "The President is right. The cure to be found must not be worse than the disease itself. We're going to have to make some very difficult concessions in the period ahead."

Most probably US President Trump and his economic advisor Kudlow are aware of the great economic crisis of 1929 and the major crises experienced after the Second World War. That is why they are so worried.

The great crisis of 1929 hit the industrialized cities hardest. A large army of unemployed and homeless people was born, the small, individual material livelihoods and small savings of billions of people were destroyed and 4,000 large banks went bankrupt.

During this period 70 percent of the world population lived in rural and village areas. Their working environment and economies were sufficient for them.

Today, as the Corona crisis is spreading around the world, the situation is exactly the opposite of 1929, with between 65 and 70 percent of the world's population living in cities. The number of people in the countryside and in villages that are capable of subsistence production is very low.

So you don't have to be an expert or a clairvoyant to see that the coronavirus pandemic will be followed by an economic crisis that will surpass 1929 and 1945.

This crisis will be of a magnitude that Trump, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron would not want.

As long as the pandemic continues, banks, insurance companies, factories, financial companies, the agricultural industry, construction, mining and agriculture will no longer function within the framework of capitalist rules. They will no longer be able to produce and trade. Their income will be minimized, but their expenses and debts will remain unchanged.

Billions of people will be much more affected by this situation. After the pandemic, the masses in the cities will initially not be able to pay their rent. After that, they will have problems finding food and drinking water. The unemployed, casual workers, people living on state benefits and those who lose their jobs as a result of the pandemic will thus form an army of the needy and set out in search of basic supplies.

Today's conditions are not like the two blocs during the Cold War. On the contrary, the US, China, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and France are part of the same system. Consequently, there will not be a Marshall Plan to help, as there was after 1945 under the Truman Doctrine.

Historical experience, the current events and the course of affairs point to the great depression following the coronavirus.

*Ferda Çetin is a journalist and columnist for the pro-Kurdish daily newspaper Yeni Özgür Politika. The original text was published in Turkish.

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