THREAD
Evolutionary Biologist Rob Wallace (who is a socialist ) wrote “Big Farms Make Big Flu” (2016) where he makes the connection between capitalism, corporate farming practices and the emergence of deadly viruses.

In an interview in (2017) he explains why he chose a hand holding goose guts as the cover of the book:

How going from small family farms to huge corporate farms creates ideal conditions for pathogens to spread

The H5Nx (Avian Flu) has an affinity for industrial poultry:

Agribusinesses deflect blame to China & others but “its the economic model itself thats the source, that’s driving the evolution & spread of deadly pathogens”

How deforestation, monoculture (fields where only 1 crop is grown), & neoliberalism paved the way for an Ebola outbreak in Africa:

I wish his answer was sharper here instead of the liberal sounding “breaking a hold on democracies” but he at least smacked down consumer choice. Political organization IS required, Communist political organizing.

In an interview in 2015 before his book was published he hypothesizes the geopolitical & economic forces that paved the way for HIV to emerge:

Hotspots r places where outbreaks spread, but he asks us to instead think of hotspots as the centers of capital (NY, London, Hong Kong) that are financing the deforestation & development that leads to the spillover of pathogens. This is sharpest thing he’s said

Now here he is speaking specifically about Covid-19 on March 13 https://mronline.org/2020/03/17/how-global-agriculture-grew-a-pandemic/

The importance of all of this is that capitalist farming practices are set up to encourage deadly viruses to emerge and we got relatively lucky with a Covid-19 which has a very low fatality rate. We won’t be “lucky” every time.

https://climateandcapitalism.com/2020/03/11/capitalist-agriculture-and-covid-19-a-deadly-combination/
This interview is awesome! Pls read this