The shifts occurring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic are historic and volatile. While the eventual depth and duration of the twin health and economic crises are still unknown, there is no doubt that global powers are again using the shock of a crisis to consolidate power and vie for global leadership.

What will the post-coronavirus world look like? History tells us that in times of crisis, large corporations and the most vulnerable in society seek refuge under the protection of the state. The 2008 financial crisis already made clear that markets alone cannot drive competitiveness and prosperity. On the contrary, state intervention is crucial.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the second major crisis of globalization in a decade. The first was the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, from which the global economy took years to reach a semblance of recovery. We did not learn our lessons from the first, and this is perhaps why the impact of the second has been even more massive.

The present pandemic is certain to be different not because it is more lethal than previous ones (it is not), nor because it is causing havoc in financial markets (as most crises of neoliberal era have), but because it is exposing the weaknesses, distortions and imbalances of the productive apparatus that neoliberalism has shaped over four decades.

The evolution of neoliberal policies since the 1980s is highly correlated with the decline of democracy in America. Democratic norms, practices, rights and civil liberties, and even institutions of government, have been in atrophy and decay over the period. Moreover, the decline has accelerated in recent decades as neoliberalism became more aggressive in implementing its policy objectives as opposition to it—both domestic and foreign—has intensified. The attack on democracy has risen to a qualitatively new stage in the era of Trump.

The proposed replacement of NAFTA, is a tool for corporate interests and provides insufficient relief to address the problems for working people embedded in the original agreement. These trade agreements serve to guarantee corporate investments in foreign countries and stop elected governments from passing measures that might impact corporate profitability while offering no real guarantees to workers in exchange.

Based on the notion that the private market can always do things better, the doctrine of privatization has become so pervasive that it is rarely questioned or challenged, becoming a driving force in our politics. The benefits of privatization are routinely asserted with great confidence, although rarely with any proof. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite: that privatization is costing us dearly in financial terms. It is also diminishing our collective power to own and control key aspects of our economy, our country and our lives.

The protest in Seattle demonstrated the power of a convergence of class and new social movement politics but without a plan to seize state power the left will always be reactive. The lessons of Seattle are the power of solidarity but also the power of the state. Protests are empowering, they generate solidarity, but they can only slow down capital momentarily.

I left Quebec City with the knowledge of how far my government would go tosilence us. And I am a coward. So I have never participated in another protest since that weekend in April 2001. I lost my faith in elected governments. I lost my faith in direct action. I lost my faith, in some ways, in social change. Maybe I just grew up. I try to keep fighting, but Quebec City changed me forever. It turns out that was what democracy looks like.

Unless the socialist Left throws itself wholeheartedly into its activities and debates, it will not receive a hearing during this or probably any future wave of radicalization. Ahead of us all is the unmet challenge – the construction of a new International of Hope, which fires the imagination and mobilizes the energies of millions of people in the struggle against capitalist barbarism and for socialism.