States of Emergency: Keeping the Global Population in Check

Ever since large parts of the world were placed in lockdown in March 2020 in the name of public health, there has been a growing public suspicion that some sort of global seizure of power and social transformation is being implemented under guise of the extraordinary suspension of democracy and unprecedented restrictions of basic freedoms occurring in so many countries at the same time. This book contends that since the financial collapse of 2008, populations in many countries have become restive in the face of extreme inequality and diminishing life chances. In a digital economy, one to two billion people will soon be superfluous, but they are not likely to remain sitting on their hands; in many parts of the world their resistance has begun. The Western capitalist elites have lost the capacity to engage their respective peoples in an equitable social contract and have resorted to stoking fear -- from the terrorism scare and the Russian threat to the COVID infliction, with more variants coming on line -- as a formula for curtailing protest and maintaining power.