COVID-19 and Disaster Capitalism

Translated by Tong Yanguang, Cao Lihua

佟艳光 曹立华 翻译

Since the end of the 20th century, capitalist globalization has increasingly adopted interconnected commodity chains controlled by transnational corporations, linking various production zones (mainly developing countries) with the regions and countries at the apex of the global chains of consumption, finance, and capital accumulation (primarily developed countries). These commodity chains constitute the principal material circuits of global capital, thereby forming late imperialism, characterized by the rise of monopoly-finance capital.[1]1 Late imperialism: A concept used by Marxist theorists to denote the contemporary stage of capitalism dominated by monopoly-finance capital, extending classical theories of imperialism. Within this system, the high profits from global production control derive not only from global labor arbitrage[2]2 Global labor arbitrage: The practice by which transnational corporations exploit wage differentials between countries, relocating production to lower-wage regions to maximize profits. (i.e., the overexploitation and squeezing of industrial labor in the periphery by headquarters of transnational corporations at the center of the system through global labor arbitrage) but also from global land arbitrage (i.e., agricultural transnational corporations expropriating cheap land and labor in developing countries to produce export crops primarily sold to developed countries).[3]3 The reference to Marx’s analysis of commodity chains and the metabolic rift draws on his discussion in *Capital*, Volume I, of the “general chain of metamorphoses” and the ecological contradictions of capitalism.

自20世纪末以来，资本主义全球化越来越多地采用跨国公司控制的相互关联的商品链，将各种生产区(主要是发展中国家)与世界消费、金融和资本积累链条的顶端地区和国家(主要为发达国家)联系起来。这些商品链构成了全球资本的主要物质循环，进而形成了以垄断金融资本的兴起为重要特征的晚期帝国主义(late imperialism)1。在此体系中，全球生产控制权的高额利润不仅来自全球劳动力套利2(即处于体系中心的跨国公司总部通过全球劳动力套利过度剥削、压榨处于体系外围的工业劳动力)，而且来自全球土地套利(即农业跨国公司在发展中国家征用廉价土地和劳动力生产主要销往发达国家的出口作物)。3

In today’s global economy, for corporate managers, these complex circuits of capital encompass both supply chains and value chains. Supply chains represent the flow of physical products, while value chains target the “added value” at each production node from raw materials to final products.[4]4 Supply chains and value chains: Terms from business management and global production network analysis; Marx’s dialectic of use-value and exchange-value provides a critical framework. This dual emphasis on supply chains and value chains is in some respects analogous to Marx’s more dialectical methodology, developed in his analysis of commodity chains in production and exchange, involving use-value and exchange-value. In Volume I of *Capital*, Marx emphasized the dual reality of natural-material use-values (“natural form”) and exchange-value (“value-form”) at each link in what he called “the general chain of metamorphoses” of the world of commodities.[5]5 The “general chain of metamorphoses” is Marx’s term for the sequence of transformations commodities undergo in the circulation process.

在当今全球经济中，对企业管理者而言，这些复杂的资本循环同时包括供应链和价值链。供应链代表实物产品的流动，价值链则针对从原材料到最终产品的每个生产节点的“增值”(added value)。4这种对供应链和价值链的双重强调，在某些方面类似于马克思在分析生产和交换中的商品链时发展起来的更加辩证的涉及使用价值和交换价值的方法论。在《资本论》第一卷中，马克思强调了“商品世界一般的形态变化系列”(the general chain of metamorphoses)中的每个环节都存在着自然—物质的使用价值(natural-material use values)(“自然形态”)和交换价值(“价值形态”)的双重现实。5

In the 1980s, world-systems theorists Terence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein reintroduced the concept of commodity chains based on Marxist theory. However, subsequent Marxist (and world-systems) analyses of commodity chains have generally neglected the material-ecological dimension of use-value, treating commodity chains purely as economic/value phenomena. Marx never overlooked the natural-material limits of the circuit of capital; he emphasized the “negative, i.e., destructive” impact of capitalist valorization on natural conditions of production and on the metabolism between humanity and nature as an organic whole. The irreparable rupture in the interdependent social metabolism (the metabolic rift) constitutes capitalism’s destructive relation to the earth, as seen in the “exhaustion of the soil” followed by “the use of guano to fertilize English fields.” This metabolic rift is equally evident in “periodically recurring epidemics,” caused by contradictions inherent in the natural evolution of the capitalist system.[6]6 Metabolic rift: Marx’s concept of the disruption of the natural nutrient cycle between humanity and the earth under capitalism, leading to ecological crises.

在1980年代，世界体系理论家特伦斯·霍普金斯(Terence Hopkins)和伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦(Immanuel Wallerstein)基于马克思主义理论重新引入了商品链概念。然而，后来的马克思主义理论(以及世界体系)的商品链分析却普遍忽视了使用价值的物质—生态方面，将商品链完全视作经济/价值现象。马克思从未忽视资本循环的自然—物质局限(natural-material limits)，他强调了资本主义的稳定物价(capitalist valorization)对自然生产条件以及作为统一整体的人与自然的新陈代谢产生的“负面亦即破坏性”影响。相互依存的社会新陈代谢不可弥补的断裂(新陈代谢断裂)，构成资本主义对地球的破坏性关系，即“地力枯竭”后再“用海鸟粪为英国田地施肥”。这种新陈代谢断裂在“周期复发的流行病”中也同样明显，是由资本主义制度自然演进产生的矛盾造成的。6

I. The Circuit of Capital and the Ecological-Epidemiological Crisis

一、资本循环与生态—流行病危机

Notably, over the past decade, a more holistic and collaborative approach to disease etiology has emerged, namely “One Health-One World,” primarily targeting recent zoonotic diseases transmitted from animals (wild or domesticated) to humans, such as SARS, MERS, and H1N1. The “One Health” model integrates epidemiological analysis on an ecological basis, bringing together ecological scientists, physicians, veterinarians, and public health analysts globally within this methodological framework. Consequently, the multisectoral collaborative approach of “One Health” has rapidly transformed into a model that combines diverse interest areas—public health, private medical care, animal health, agribusiness, and large pharmaceutical groups—to strengthen responses to episodic pandemics. This also marks the rise of a broad corporatist strategy with capital, particularly agribusiness, as a key element. Thus, the connection between pandemic crises and the capitalist world economy is systematically downplayed within this so-called holistic model.[7]7 “One Health-One World”: A global health initiative emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration; the authors critique its neglect of capitalist structural drivers. Consequently, a new revolutionary approach to disease etiology has emerged: “Structural One Health.” “Structural One Health” critically builds upon “One Health” but is more deeply rooted in the broad historical materialist tradition. For proponents of “Structural One Health,” the key is to identify how pandemics in the contemporary global economy are linked to circuits of capital that rapidly alter environmental conditions. A team of scientists including Rodrick Wallace, Luis Fernando Chaves, Luke R. Bergmann, Richard Kock, and Robert G. Wallace has co-authored a series of works, such as *Clear-Cutting Disease Control: Capital-Led Deforestation*, *Public Health Austerity*, and *Vector-Borne Infection*, as well as the recent article “COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital” in the May 2020 issue of *Monthly Review*. “Structural One Health” is defined as a new field that examines the impact of global circuits of capital and other relevant fundamental background factors, including deep history, on regional agricultural economics and interspecies disease dynamics.

值得注意的是，在过去的10年中，出现了一种针对疾病病因的更注重整体主义协作的新方法，即“同一健康，同一世界”(One Health-One World)，主要是针对最近由动物(野生或驯养)传染给人类的SARS、中东呼吸综合征和H1N1等人畜共患传染病。“同一健康”(One Health)模式在生态基础上整合流行病学分析，将全球范围内的生态科学家、医生、兽医和公共卫生分析师聚拢在该方法论框架内。因此，“同一健康”的多部门合作方法已迅速转变为一种模式，将公共卫生、民营医疗、动物卫生、农业综合企业和大型制药集团等不同的利益领域结合起来，加强对偶发性流行病的应对能力。这也标志着以资本，特别是农业综合企业为主要要素的广泛的社团主义战略的兴起。于是，流行病危机与资本主义世界经济之间的联系，在所谓的整体模式中被系统性地淡化了。7因此，针对疾病病因采取了一种新的革命性的方法，即“结构性同一健康”(Structural One Health)。“结构性同一健康”批判性地以“同一健康”为基础，但更是植根于广泛的历史唯物主义传统。对“结构性同一健康”的支持者来说，关键是要确定当代全球经济中的流行病是如何与迅速改变环境条件的资本循环联系起来的。罗德里克·华莱士(Rodrick Wallace)、路易斯·费尔南多·查弗斯(Luis Fernando Chaves)、卢克·R．伯格曼(Luke R.Bergmann)、理查德·科克(Richard Kock)和罗伯特·G．华莱士(Robert G.Wallace)等组成的科学家团队共同撰写了一系列著作，如《毁林疾病控制:资本主导的森林砍伐》(Clear-Cutting Disease Control:Capital-Led Deforestation)、《公共卫生紧缩》(Public Health Austerity)和《病媒传播感染》(Vector-Borne Infection)，以及最近在《每月评论》2020年5月号发表的《新冠肺炎和资本循环》一文。“结构性同一健康”被定义为一个崭新的领域，它考察资本全球循环和包括深耕历史在内的其他相关的基本背景因素对区域农业经济学和物种间相关疾病动态的影响。

The revolutionary historical materialist methodology represented by “Structural One Health” departs from mainstream “One Health” methodology in several key respects: (1)[8]8 “Absolute geography”: A term critiqued here for its focus on localized disease emergence without accounting for global economic networks. a focus on the driving force of commodity chains in pandemics; (2)[9]9 “Black swan” events: A metaphor for rare, unpredictable events with major consequences, popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. a rejection of the usual “absolute geography” approach—which focuses on specific sites where new viruses emerge while failing to recognize global economic transmission channels; (3)[10]10 István Mészáros: A Hungarian Marxist philosopher; *Beyond Capital* (1995) analyzes the structural crisis of capital. treating pandemics not as episodic problems or random “black swan” events, but as reflections of the general structural crisis of capital, as explained by István Mészáros in his book *Beyond Capital*; (4)[11]11 Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin: American biologists known for their work *The Dialectical Biologist* (1985), applying dialectical materialism to biology. adopting the dialectical biology approach of Harvard biologists Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin in *The Dialectical Biologist*; (5) insisting on a thorough reconstruction of society as a whole aimed at promoting a sustainable “planetary metabolism.” Robert Wallace, in his book *Big Farms Make Big Flu* and other works, draws on Marx’s views on commodity chains and metabolic rift, and his analysis is also based on critiques of economic austerity and privatization informed by the Lauderdale Paradox (i.e., the growth of private wealth at the expense of public wealth). Thinkers in this critical tradition rely on a dialectical method to think through ecological destruction and pandemic etiology.

“结构性同一健康”所代表的革命历史唯物主义方法论背离了主流的“同一健康”方法论，主要表现在以下几个方面。(1)8重点关注商品链对流行病的推动力量;(2)9对通常的“绝对地域”做法不予理会———“绝对地域”做法侧重于关注出现新病毒的特定场所，而未能认识到全球性的经济传播渠道;(3)10不是将大流行病看作偶发性问题或随机的“黑天鹅”事件，而是将之视作资本的普遍结构性危机的反映，正如伊斯特万·梅塞罗斯(István Mészáros)在他的《超越资本》(Beyond Capital)一书中所解释的那样;(4)11采用哈佛生物学家理查德·莱文斯(Richard Levins)和理查德·莱翁丁(Richard Lewontin)在《辩证生物学家》(Dialectical biologist)中所采用的辩证生物学方法;(5)坚持以促进可持续的“地球新陈代谢”为目的，对整个社会进行彻底重建。罗伯特·华莱士在他的《大农场制造大流感》(Big Farms Make Big Hu)及其他著作中借鉴了马克思关于商品链和新陈代谢断裂的观点，其观点也基于劳德代尔悖论(即私人财富的增长以公共财富的破坏为代价)对经济紧缩和私有化的相关批评。秉持这一批判传统精神的思想家们依靠辩证的方法思考生态破坏和流行病病因问题。

Of course, the new historical materialist epidemiology did not emerge from a vacuum; rather, it is built on a long tradition of socialist struggle and critical analysis of epidemics, for example: (1) Engels’ *The Condition of the Working Class in England* discussed the class basis of infectious diseases; (2) Marx discussed epidemics and public health conditions in *Capital*; (3) British zoologist E. Ray Lankester, in *Kingdom of Man*, proposed countermeasures concerning the human factors of disease and their capitalist agricultural, market, and financial foundations; (4) Richard Levins’ *Is Capitalism a Disease?* [12]12 Richard Levins, “Is Capitalism a Disease?” *Monthly Review* 52, no. 4 (September 2000): 8–33.

当然，新的历史唯物主义流行病学并非凭空产生的，而是建立在社会主义斗争的悠久传统和对流行病进行批判性分析的基础上，例如:(1)8恩格斯的《英国工人阶级状况》讨论了传染病的阶级基础;(2)12马克思在《资本论》中讨论了流行病和公众健康状况;(3)13英国动物学家E．雷·兰克斯特(E.Ray Lankester)在《人类王国》(Kingdom of Man)中提出了关于疾病的人为因素及其资本主义农业、市场和金融基础的相关对策;(4)11理查德·莱文斯的《资本主义是一种疾病吗?》(Is Capitalism a Disease)。8

The new historical materialist epidemiology associated with “structural One Health” clearly recognizes the role played by global agribusiness, focusing on emerging zoonotic diseases and combining this with detailed research into all aspects of etiology. As Robert Wallace states in *Big Farms Make Big Flu*, these diseases are “unintended biological consequences of efforts to steer animal genetics and ecology toward transnational profitability,” and new lethal pathogens are thereby generated. Monoculture farming of genetically similar livestock (eliminating immune buffer zones) constituting offshore agriculture (including large-scale pig feedlots and large-scale poultry farms), along with deforestation, cause wild birds and other wildlife to mix with industrial animal production (wet markets included), creating conditions for the spread of new lethal pathogens such as SARS, MERS, Ebola, H1N1, H5N1, and now COVID-19. Globally, over 500,000 people died from H1N1 influenza, and the death toll from COVID-19 is likely to far exceed that number.

与“结构性同一健康”相关联的新历史唯物主义流行病学清楚地认识到了全球农业综合企业所扮演的角色，重点考察了新的人畜共患传染病，并将之与病原学各方面的详细研究相结合。正如罗伯特·华莱士在《大农场制造大流感》中所说的，这些疾病是“在努力引导动物基因与生态走向跨国盈利能力过程中无意间造成的生物后果”，新的致命病原体亦由此产生。由基因相似的家畜的单一养殖(消除免疫隔离带)构成的近海农业(包括大规模猪饲养场和大型家禽养殖场)以及对森林的乱砍滥伐，导致野生鸟类及其他野生动物与工业动物生产混杂在一起(农贸市场也不例外)，这为SARS、中东呼吸综合征、埃博拉、H1N1、H5N1以及如今的新冠病毒肺炎等新的致命病原体的传播创造了条件。全球有50多万人死于H1N1流感，而新冠肺炎的死亡人数很可能远远超过这个数字。

Robert Wallace writes that “agribusiness” “is moving corporations to developing countries to take advantage of cheap labor and land” and “spreading its entire production line around the world.” Human-animal interactions generate new diseases. He tells us: “Now, regardless of where a particular strain first evolves, influenza spreads through the globalized corporate production and trade network of animal husbandry.” As livestock are rapidly transported from one region to another, multiple influenza strains are continuously transmitted to places where susceptible animal populations are concentrated. Large-scale commercial poultry enterprises have been proven to have a much higher probability of contracting these lethal zoonotic diseases. Value chain analysis is used to trace the etiology of novel influenza strains such as H5N1 along the poultry production commodity chain.

罗伯特·华莱士写道，“农业综合企业”“正将公司转移到发展中国家，以利用廉价劳动力和土地”，并“将其整个生产线遍布世界各地”。人畜相互影响产生新的疾病。他告诉我们:“现在不论特定菌株在哪里首先进化，流感都会通过全球化的企业饲养生产和贸易网络而传播。”随着畜类从一个地区被迅速带往另一个地区，多种流感毒株不断被传播到易感动物种群聚集的地方。事实证明，大型商业家禽企业感染这些致命性人畜共患疾病的几率要高很多。价值链分析被用来沿着家禽生产商品链追踪H5N1等新型流感的病因。

The interconnected global commodity chains of agribusiness provide the basis for emerging zoonotic diseases. Robert Wallace and his colleagues write in “COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital”: “Some pathogens arise directly from production centers… but many, like COVID-19, originate on the front lines of capital production. In fact, at least 60% of emerging human pathogens result from viruses spilling over from wildlife into local human communities.” In summarizing the conditions for the spread of these diseases, their underlying operational premise is that the etiology of COVID-19 and other such pathogens can be discovered not only in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of any infected target, but also in ecosystems that have been strangled by the self-serving structural factors of capital. Various pathogens differing in classification, reservoir hosts, transmission routes, clinical processes, and epidemiological outcomes all possess the above characteristics, so that each disease outbreak sends us racing to search engines, marking different regions and pathways along the same map of land-use and value-accumulation cycles. [13]13 Robert G. Wallace et al., “COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital,” *Monthly Review* 72, no. 1 (May 2020): 1–13.

农业综合企业互联的全球商品链为新型人畜共患疾病提供了基础，罗伯特·华莱士和他的同事在《新冠肺炎和资本循环》一文中写道:“一些病原体直接从生产中心产生……但许多病原体，比如新冠肺炎起源于资本生产的第一线。事实上，至少有60%的新型人类病原体的出现是病毒从野生动物蔓延到当地人类社区而导致的。”在他们总结这些疾病传播的条件时，其潜在的运作前提是，新冠肺炎和其他此类病原体的病因不仅可以在任何传染性病原体侵袭对象的临床诊疗过程中被发现，而且可以在遭受资本结构性因素出于自私目的扼制的生态系统中被发现。分类、来源宿主、传播方式、临床过程和流行病学结果不同的各种病原体具备上述所有特征，因此每一次疾病的爆发都会让我们狂奔向搜索引擎，沿着同样的土地利用和价值积累循环地图标记不同区域与路径。14

The restructuring of imperialist production at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st (what we call globalization) was primarily the result of global labor arbitrage and the hyper-exploitation of workers in developing countries (including deliberate pollution of local environments) carried out to expand the interests of the world’s capital and financial centers. But at the same time, it was also partly driven by global land arbitrage through transnational agribusiness. According to Eric Holt-Giménez in *A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism*, in most underdeveloped regions of the world, “land prices” are so low relative to land rent (the value it can create) that the difference (arbitrage) between low land prices and high land rents yields substantial profits for investors. In this transaction, any benefits from crop cultivation are in fact secondary. Land arbitrage opportunities arise from placing new land with considerable rent potential onto the global land market, allowing rent to be truly capitalized within that market. This is largely driven by the so-called “Livestock Revolution,” which turns livestock into a globalized commodity based on mega-feedlots and genetic monocultures (for high production performance). [14]14 The “Livestock Revolution” refers to the rapid industrialization and globalization of livestock production since the late 20th century, driven by rising demand for meat and dairy in developing countries and the expansion of corporate agribusiness.

20世纪末21世纪初的帝国主义生产结构调整(即我们所谓的全球化)主要是为了扩大世界资本和金融中心的利益而实行全球劳动力套利和对全球发展中国家工人进行过度剥削(包括对当地环境的有意污染)的结果。但与此同时，它也部分受到通过跨国农业综合企业进行的全球土地套利的推动。根据埃里克·霍尔特-吉梅内斯(Eric Holt-Giménez)在《资本主义吃货指南》(A Foodie's Guide to Capitalism)中的说法，全球大部分不发达地区的“土地价格”相对于其土地租金(它能创造的价值)如此之低，因此低土地价格与高土地租金之间的差额(套利)将为投资者带来可观的利润。就此项交易来讲，事实上作物种植的任何好处都是次要的。土地套利机会来自将土地租金可观的新土地投放到全球土地市场，使租金在市场中可以真正实现资本化。这在很大程度上是由所谓的“牲畜革命”(Livestock Revolution)驱动的，“牲畜革命”使牲畜成为一种基于巨型饲养场和(为了实现高生产性能的)遗传上的单一培育的(genetic monocultures)全球化商品。9

Various development banks, under the guise of so-called “land adjustment,” have facilitated the preconditions for land arbitrage, including the removal of subsistence farmers and small producers from the land, rapid deforestation, and destruction of ecosystems, at the behest of transnational corporations (mainly agribusiness). This is also known as the 21st-century land grab. The surge in basic food prices in 2008 and 2011, along with private wealth funds seeking tangible assets amid the uncertainty following the 2007–2009 financial crisis, further accelerated the land grab process. The result has been the largest migration in human history: people are driven off the land in the global process of de-agrarianization, the agro-ecology of entire regions is destroyed, traditional agriculture is replaced by monoculture, and large populations are pushed into urban slums. [15]15 The “21st-century land grab” denotes the large-scale acquisition of land in developing countries by foreign governments, corporations, and investment funds, often displacing local populations and converting land to export-oriented monoculture.

各种开发银行在美其名曰“土地调整”的背景下促进了土地套利的前提条件的形成，其中包括在跨国公司(主要是农业综合企业)的要求下，从土地上迁移走自耕农和小生产者，迅速砍伐森林和破坏生态系统。这也被称为21世纪的土地掠夺。2008年和2011年基本食品价格高涨，2007—2009年金融危机后面临不确定性风险的私人财富基金寻求有形资产，这些都进一步加速了土地掠夺进程。结果造成了人类历史上最大规模的移民:在全球非农化进程中，人们被赶出土地，整个区域的农业生态遭到破坏，传统农业被单一栽培所取代，大量人口被推向城市贫民窟。10

II. Commodity Chain Disruption and the Global Bullwhip Effect [16]16 The “bullwhip effect” is a supply chain phenomenon where small fluctuations in consumer demand cause increasingly larger fluctuations in orders and inventory upstream, amplified by delays and information distortion.

二、商品链中断与全球牛鞭效应11

The novel pathogens inadvertently brought about by agribusiness are not themselves natural-material use-values, but rather toxic residues of the capitalist production system, traceable to the agribusiness commodity chain—an inseparable component of the globalized food system. Under the impact of pandemic lockdowns and social distancing, production in key global sectors was shut down, thereby shaking international supply chains/value chains. This generated a massive “bullwhip effect,” spreading simultaneously from both the supply and demand ends of global commodity chains. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred against the backdrop of a global neoliberal monopoly-finance capital system that has imposed compulsory austerity worldwide, including in the public health sector. Within the global commodity chain system, the widespread adoption of just-in-time production, [17]17 Just-in-time (JIT) production is a manufacturing strategy that minimizes inventory by producing goods only as needed, reducing costs but increasing vulnerability to supply chain disruptions. together with time-based competition, has left institutions such as hospitals with minimal inventories, while residents’ panic hoarding of certain goods further complicates the problem, ultimately leading to extraordinary chaos in the global economy.

农业综合企业无意间带来的新型病原体本身并非自然—物质的使用价值，而是资本主义生产体系的有毒残留物，可追溯到全球化粮食体系不可分割的组成部分———农业综合企业商品链。在疫情封锁和社交疏离的影响下，全球关键部门的生产被关闭，从而动摇了国际供应链/价值链。这产生了巨大的“牛鞭效应”，它从全球商品链的供求两端同时扩散开来。此外，新冠肺炎疫情大流行是在全球新自由主义垄断—金融资本体系背景下发生的，该资本体系在全世界实行了强制性紧缩，其中包括公共卫生领域。在全球商品链体系中，普遍采用的准时制生产15连同基于时间的竞争使医院等机构组织的库存所剩无几，而居民紧急囤积某些商品的做法又使问题更加复杂化，最终导致全球经济的异常混乱。

Today’s global commodity chains (or what we call labor value chains) are primarily designed to exploit the lower unit labor costs (taking into account both wage costs and productivity) of poorer countries in the global developing world. In 2014, unit labor costs in India and Mexico were 37% and 43% of US market levels, respectively. Indonesia’s unit labor costs were higher, at 62% of US market levels.[18]18 Intan Suwandi, *Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism*, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2019, p. 67. This is largely due to extremely low wages in developing countries, which are only a fraction of wage levels in developed countries. At the same time, hands-off production under the transnational corporate system and advanced technology introduced through new export platforms generate productivity in many sectors comparable to that of developed countries. The result is a comprehensive globalized system of exploitation, where the wage gap between developed and developing countries exceeds the productivity gap, leading to very low unit labor costs in developing countries and generating huge gross profit margins (or economic surplus) on the export prices of goods from poorer countries.

今天的全球商品链(抑或我们所说的劳动价值链)主要是为了利用全球发展中国家中较贫穷国家较低的单位劳动力成本(综合考虑到工资成本和生产率)。2014年，印度和墨西哥的单位劳动力成本分别是美国市场水平的37%和43%。印尼的单位劳动力成本较高，为美国市场水平的62%。12这在很大程度上是由于发展中国家的工资极低，只是发达国家工资水平的一小部分。同时，在跨国公司体系下进行的放手式生产以及引入新出口平台的先进技术在许多领域产生的生产率与发达国家相当。其结果是产生了一个综合性的全球化剥削体系，其中，发达国家与发展中国家之间的工资差异大于生产率差异，这导致发展中国家的单位劳动力成本非常低，在较贫穷国家商品的出口价格上产生了巨大的毛利率(或经济盈余)。

The huge economic surplus created by global developing countries is recorded as value added in the gross domestic product (GDP) of developed countries. However, it should be more accurately understood as value extracted from developing countries. This new system of international exploitation associated with the globalization of production constitutes the deep structure of late 21st-century imperialism. It is a world system of exploitation/expropriation centered on global labor arbitrage, leading to the transfer of vast amounts of value created in poor countries to rich countries.

全球发展中国家创造的巨大经济盈余作为增值计入发达国家的国内生产总值(GDP)。然而，它们应该被更准确地理解为从发展中国家获取的价值。这种与生产全球化相关的国际剥削新体系构成了21世纪晚期帝国主义的深层结构。它是一个围绕全球劳动力套利形成的世界剥削/征用体系，导致穷国创造的巨额价值向富国的流失。

All of this has been made possible by revolutions in transportation and communication. With the proliferation of standardized shipping containers, transport costs have plummeted. Communication technologies such as fiber-optic cables, mobile phones, the internet, broadband, cloud computing, and video conferencing have transformed global connectivity. Air travel has reduced the cost of rapid travel; global air passenger traffic grew at an average annual rate of 6.5% between 2010 and 2019. Approximately one-third of US exports are intermediate goods—such as cotton, steel, engines, and semiconductors—produced for final products elsewhere. It is under these rapidly changing conditions that an increasingly integrated and hierarchical international system of capital accumulation has emerged, giving rise to the current global commodity chain system. Consequently, all regions of the world are enmeshed in a single system of exploitation and oppression, and this connectivity is showing signs of destabilization under the dual impact of the US trade war with China and the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy.

这一切都得益于交通和通信领域的革命。随着标准化集装箱激增，运输成本骤降，光纤电缆、移动电话、互联网、宽带、云计算和视频会议等通信技术改变了全球关联方式。航空旅行降低了快速旅行的价格，2010年至2019年间的全球航空客流量年均增长了6.5%。大约有1/3的美国出口产品是为其他地方的最终产品生产的中间产品，如棉花、钢铁、发动机和半导体。正是在这些迅速变化的条件下，产生了一个日益一体化、等级日益严格的国际资本积累体系，进而出现了目前的全球商品链体系。因此，全球所有地区都处于同一个剥削压迫体系之中，在美国对华贸易战和新冠肺炎疫情大流行对全球经济的双重影响下，这种连通性正显示出破坏稳定的迹象。

The COVID-19 pandemic, along with lockdowns and social distancing measures, has led to the “first global supply chain crisis,”[19]19 “The First Global Supply Chain Crisis,” *The Economist*, February 29, 2020. resulting in loss of economic value, massive unemployment and underemployment, business closures, intensified exploitation, and widespread hunger and deprivation. A key factor making the current crisis so complex and chaotic is that CEOs of transnational corporations anywhere do not have a complete map of their companies’ commodity chains. Typically, a company’s financial center and procurement personnel know their first-tier suppliers but not their second-tier suppliers (i.e., their suppliers’ suppliers), let alone third- or fourth-tier suppliers. As Elisabeth Braw wrote in *Foreign Policy*, Michael Essig, a professor of supply management at the Bundeswehr University Munich, calculated that a transnational corporation like Volkswagen has 5,000 suppliers (so-called first-tier suppliers), each with an average of 250 second-tier suppliers. This means the company effectively has 1.25 million suppliers, the vast majority of which it knows nothing about. Moreover, this does not even account for third-tier suppliers.

新冠肺炎疫情大流行以及防疫封锁和扩大社交距离的措施，导致了“第一次全球供应链危机”13，造成经济价值损失、大量失业和就业不足、企业倒闭、剥削加剧以及普遍的饥饿和匮乏。导致当前危机如此复杂与混乱的关键是，任何地方的跨国公司的首席执行官都没有公司商品链的完整图谱。通常，公司的财务中心和采购人员了解他们的一级供应商，但不认识他们的二级供应商(即供应商的供应商)，更不认识三级甚至四级供应商。正如伊丽莎白·布罗(Elisabeth Braw)在《外交政策》上所写道的，慕尼黑联邦国防军大学供应管理教授迈克尔·埃西格(Michael Essig)计算出，像大众这样的跨国公司有5000家供应商(所谓的一级供应商)，每个供应商平均有250家二级供应商。这意味着公司实际上拥有125万家供应商，对于绝大多数供应商它都毫不知情。”此外，这还根本未将三级供应商计算在内。

The impact of the coronavirus has forced companies to urgently map their entire commodity chain. But this is extremely complex. When the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred, it was discovered that the Fukushima region produced 60% of the world’s critical automotive components; a large portion of the world’s lithium battery chemicals also originated there; and it produced 22% of the world’s 300-millimeter silicon wafers. All these products are vital to industrial production. At that time, some monopoly financial companies attempted to map their supply chain. According to the *Harvard Business Review*, a senior executive at a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer said that after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami (and the Fukushima nuclear disaster), a team of over a hundred people spent more than a year mapping the company’s supply network down to the suppliers that provided materials to subcontractors.

新冠病毒的影响迫使企业急需绘制其整个商品链谱系。但这是极其错综复杂的。福岛核灾难发生时，人们发现福岛地区生产世界60%的关键汽车零部件;世界锂电池化学产品的很大一部分也是在这里问世的;此外，它所生产的300毫米硅片占全球产量的22%。所有这些产品对工业生产都至关重要。当时，一些垄断金融公司试图绘制其供应链谱系。据《哈佛商业评论》报导，一家日本半导体制造商的高管谈到，在2011年地震和海啸(以及福岛核灾难)之后，一个百人团队耗费一年多时间才将公司的供应网络绘制到为分包商提供材料的供应商这一层次。

Many links in the supply chain are invisible, and the chain is breaking in many places, with overall supply and demand facing instability. Consequently, enterprises face risks of disruption and uncertainty in the production, distribution, and consumption of material goods. The scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on global accumulation are unprecedented, and the enormous cost to the global economy continues to rise. At the end of March 2020, approximately 3 billion people worldwide were under lockdown or social distancing measures. Most companies had no contingency plans to deal with multiple disruptions in their supply chains. In the first few months of 2020, suppliers issued tens of thousands of force majeure declarations, stating that due to special external events, they could not fulfill contracts. This illustrates the scope of the problem. At the same time, many cargo ships had their scheduled voyages canceled due to insufficient supply or demand. In early April 2020, the National Retail Federation in the US stated that container shipping volume (in 20-foot equivalent units) in March 2020 was at a five-year low, and predicted that from then on, shipping volume would decline sharply at an even faster rate. Global air passenger flights were reduced by about 90%, to the point where major US airlines converted passenger planes into cargo flights to utilize their holds and cabins.

供应链中许多环节是看不见的，而且供应链在很多地方出现断裂，总体供需存在着不稳定因素，因而企业在物质产品生产、分配和消费中面临着中断风险和不确定性风险。新冠肺炎疫情大流行的规模及其对世界积累的影响是前所未有的，全球经济付出的巨大代价仍在不断攀升。2020年3月底，世界上约有30亿人处于封锁或扩大社交距离状态。大多数公司没有应急计划来处理供应链出现多重中断的状况。2020年的头几个月各供应商纷纷在数万份不可抗力声明中表示，由于特殊的外部事件，他们无法履行合同。这体现了问题涉及的范围。与此同时，许多货船的预定航次由于供应或需求不足而被取消。2020年4月初，美国全国零售业联合会表示，2020年3月20英尺当量(集装箱)的货运量处于5年来的低点，预计从那时开始，货运量将以更快的速度大幅下降。全球航空客运航班减少了约90%，以至于美国主要航空公司将飞机改为货运航班以利用其舱位和客舱。

Trade forecasts released by the World Trade Organization in early April 2020 indicated that the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic would cause world trade to shrink by 13% to 32% in 2020. Under the pessimistic scenario, in terms of severity, a great collapse in world trade over one year would be equivalent to three years during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

世贸组织在2020年4月初发布的贸易预期显示，新冠肺炎疫情大流行对经济的影响将导致2020年世界贸易缩水13%至32%。在不乐观的情形下，就危害程度而言，世界贸易的大崩溃一年将相当于1930年代大萧条时期的三年。

During the coronavirus pandemic, the dire impact of global supply chain disruptions was particularly evident in medical equipment. Premier, one of the major purchasing organizations for US hospitals, noted that it typically buys up to 24 million N95 masks annually for its member healthcare providers and organizations, yet in January and February 2020 alone, its members had already used 56 million. In late March, the company ordered between 110 million and 150 million N95 masks, while member organizations such as hospitals and nursing homes surveyed said they had only enough masks to last a little over a week. Demand for medical masks surged, while global supply froze. COVID-19 test kits were in chronic short supply worldwide, a situation that only improved after China resumed production in late March.[20]20 “Why the World Ran Out of Coronavirus Test Kits,” *The Atlantic*, March 21, 2020.

在新冠病毒大流行期间，全球供应链中断的可怕影响在医疗设备方面表现尤为明显。美国医院的主要采购组织之一普瑞米尔医疗保健公司(Premier)指出，它通常每年为其成员中的卫生保健提供方和组织购买多达2400万只N95口罩，而2020年仅在1月和2月，其成员就已经使用了5600万只。3月下旬，该公司订购了1.1亿至1.5亿只N95口罩，而医院和疗养院等成员组织在接受调查时则表示，它们只有仅够维持一周多的口罩存量。医疗口罩需求猛增，而全球供应却出现冻结。新冠病毒检测试剂盒在全球长期供不应求，这一情况直到3月下旬中国恢复生产才有所改观。16

At present, many other commodities are also in short supply, but overall, amidst this turmoil and chaos, market demand has sharply declined, and warehouses are filled with goods such as fashion apparel. In the just-in-time production field, inventory is generally reduced to a minimum to lower costs. Without an economic slowdown, by early May, the supply chains of the U.S. automotive industry and many retail sectors may face long-term supply shortages. As Peter Hasenkamp, former director of supply chain strategy at Tesla and current procurement director at Lucid Motors, put it: “It takes 2,500 parts to build a car, but if just one part is missing, you cannot build the car.” The shortage of COVID-19 test kits in the United States is partly due to a lack of swabs. By mid-April 2020, 81% of global manufacturing enterprises had experienced supply shortages. By March, force majeure declarations had increased by 44% compared to the beginning of the year, and production stoppage rates had risen by 38%, causing not only material shortages but also a cash flow crisis, hence “financial risks have surged.” [21]21 The original text cites a source marked as “17” in the Chinese version, which is retained here as a reference number.

目前许多其他商品也供不应求，但总体来看，在这场动荡与混乱中，市场需求急剧下降，仓库里充斥着时尚服装等商品。在准时制生产领域，库存一般减少到最低限度以降低成本。在没有发生经济放缓的情况下，到5月初，美国汽车业和许多零售业的供应链可能会出现长期供应不足问题。正如原美国特斯拉汽车公司供应链战略总监、现任路喜达汽车公司(Lucid Motors)采购总监的彼得·哈森坎普(Peter Hasenkamp)所言:“制造一辆汽车需要2500个零部件，但只要缺少一个零件就无法制造汽车了。”新冠病毒检测试剂盒在美国供应不足的部分原因是缺少拭子。到2020年4月中旬，全球81%的制造企业出现了供应短缺。到3月份，不可抗力声明比今年年初增加了44%，停产率增加了38%，这不仅造成了物质短缺，而且还带来了现金流危机，故而“金融风险激增”17。

For today’s multinational corporations, as long as use-value can generate exchange-value, they do not care about the use-value they sell, but the actual economic impact of supply chain disruptions is on the value chain—that is, on the flow of exchange-value. Although the full value impact of global supply chain disruptions will not be known for some time, the accumulation crisis they engender can be seen from the value losses suffered by companies. Over the past decades, hundreds of companies, including Boeing, Nike, Hershey, Sun Microsystems, and Cisco, have experienced severe commodity chain disruptions. Research based on approximately 800 cases shows that the general impact of such supply chain disruptions on companies includes: “a 107% decline in operating income; a 114% decline in return on sales; a 93% decline in return on assets; a 7% decline in sales growth; an 11% increase in costs; and a 14% increase in inventory,” with such negative effects typically lasting two years. The same study indicates that over the three-year period from one year before the disruption announcement to two years after, the stock returns of companies affected by supply chain disruptions relative to industry benchmarks fell by 33% to 40%. Moreover, compared to stock price volatility in the year before the disruption, volatility in the year after the disruption was 13.50% higher. Additionally, disruptions to the entire supply chain involved in global labor arbitrage risk triggering a financial collapse in the world economy, which remains characterized by stagnation, debt, and financialization.

对今天的跨国公司而言，只要使用价值可以产生交换价值，他们就并不关心自己售出的使用价值，但供应链中断对经济的实际影响是对价值链的影响，即对交换价值流动的影响。虽然全球供应链中断带来的全部价值影响在一段时间内不会为人所知，但从公司蒙受的价值损失可以看出它所酿成的积累危机。数十年来，包括波音、耐克、好时、太阳微系统和思科等公司在内的数百家公司遭遇了严重的商品链中断危机。根据大约800个案例进行的研究表明，这种供应链中断对公司的一般影响包括:“营业收入下降107%;销售回报率下降114%;资产回报率下降93%;销售额增幅下降7%;成本增长11%;库存增长14%”，这样的负面影响通常会持续两年。同一研究表明，从中断公告日期前一年开始到之后两年的三年期间，遭受供应链中断影响的公司相对于行业基准的股票回报率降低了33%到40%。此外，与中断前一年的股价波幅相比，中断后一年的股价波幅高出13.50%。此外，全球劳动力套利所涉及的整个供应链的中断有可能在世界经济中引发金融崩溃，世界经济仍以停滞、债务和金融化为其主要特征。

A considerable portion of the exposed vulnerabilities concerns so-called supply chain financing, which allows companies to delay payments to suppliers with the help of bank financing. These debts owed to suppliers are sold by other financial interest groups in the form of short-term notes. Credit Suisse holds notes owed by major U.S. companies such as Kellogg’s and General Mills. With the widespread disruption of commodity chains, this intricate financial chain—itself an object of speculation—is in a state of inherent crisis, creating more weak links in an already fragile financial system.

暴露出的漏洞有相当一部分是所谓的供应链融资问题，供应链融资允许企业在银行融资的帮助下推迟向供应商付款。拖欠供应商的这些债务由其他金融利益集团以短期票据的形式出售。瑞士信贷拥有家乐氏和通用磨坊等美国大公司所欠的票据。随着商品链的普遍中断，这种错综复杂的金融链本身也是投机的对象，处于内在危机模式之中，在业已脆弱的金融体系中制造了更多的薄弱环节。

III. Imperialism, Class, and the Viral Pandemic

三、帝国主义、阶级和病毒大流行

The novel coronavirus, like other dangerous pathogens that have emerged or re-emerged in recent years, is closely linked to a complex set of factors: (1) [22]22 The original text lists factors starting with “(1)18” and “(3)13”; these numbers likely refer to endnotes in the source material. Here, they are rendered as (1) and (3) with the superscripts omitted for clarity, and the sequence is adjusted to (1), (2), (3) as implied by the text. With the expansion of global agribusiness, genetic monoculture has grown increasingly widespread, heightening susceptibility to zoonotic infectious diseases from wildlife to livestock herds to humans; (2) destruction of wild habitats disrupts the normal life activities of wild species; (3) [23]23 See note [22]. human living spaces have become closer to wildlife. Undoubtedly, global commodity chains and the connectivity they generate have become vectors for the rapid spread of disease, calling into question the global exploitative development model. As Stephen Roach, former chief economist at Morgan Stanley, a principal proponent of the concept of global labor arbitrage, and a professor at the Yale School of Management, wrote in the context of the coronavirus crisis, corporate financial headquarters want “low-cost goods, without considering what these cost benefits bring to public health, or, I might add, without regard for the negative impacts on environmental protection and climate quality.” This unsustainable “cost-benefit” logic has led to the contemporary global ecological crisis, pandemic crisis, and financial crisis, further undermining a capital system already characterized by “excessive proliferation” of financial bubbles.

新冠病毒与近年来出现或再次出现的其他危险病原体一样，与一系列复杂因素密切相关:(1)18随着全球农业综合企业的发展，遗传单一培育不断扩大化，增加了从野生动物到家畜群再到人类对人畜共患传染性疾病的易感性;19破坏野生栖息地，扰乱野生物种正常的生命活动;(3)13人类的生活空间变得与野生动物更为接近。毫无疑问，全球商品链及其产生的连通性已成为疾病迅速传播的媒介，使全球剥削型发展模式受到质疑。正如原摩根士丹利首席经济学家、全球劳动力套利概念的主要发起人、耶鲁大学管理学院的斯蒂芬·罗奇(Stephen Roach)在冠状病毒危机背景下所写道的那样，企业的财务总部想要的是“低成本商品，而不考虑这些成本效益会给公共卫生带来什么，或者我也可以说，不理会为环境保护和气候质量带来的负面影响”。这种不可持续的“成本效益”法则导致了当代全球生态危机、流行病危机及金融危机，进一步破坏了已经显示出金融泡沫“过度激增”特征的资本体系。

Currently, wealthy countries are at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic and financial crisis, but the combined crisis—including both economic and pandemic crises—will hit poor countries much harder. In March 2020, the COVID-19 response team at Imperial College London released a report indicating that, in a global context without mitigation, social distancing, or lockdown measures, 40 million people worldwide would die, with higher mortality rates in wealthy countries than in poor ones, because wealthy countries have a larger proportion of people aged 65 and older compared to poor countries. On the surface, this analysis accounts for the greater access to healthcare in wealthy countries. But it neglects factors such as malnutrition, poverty, and the greater susceptibility of poor countries to infectious diseases. Based on the above assumptions, Imperial College estimated that, without mitigation, deaths in East Asia and the Pacific would be 15 million, in South Asia 7.6 million, in Latin America and the Caribbean 3 million, in sub-Saharan Africa 2.5 million, and in the Middle East and North Africa 1.7 million. In comparison, deaths in Europe and Central Asia would be about 7.2 million, and in North America about 3 million.

目前，富国处于新冠疫情大流行和金融危机的中心，但包括经济危机和流行病危机在内的综合危机将给穷国带来更为沉重的打击。2020年3月，伦敦帝国理工学院的新冠疫情应对团队发布报告，指出在疫情未得到缓解、未采取社交疏远或封锁措施的全球背景下，全世界将有4000万人死亡，富国的死亡率高于贫穷国家，因为与穷国相比，富国65岁以上的人口比例较大。从表面上看，这一分析考虑到了富国获得医疗服务的机会更多这一因素。但它忽略了营养不良、贫困和穷国对传染病具有更大的易感性等因素。帝国理工学院基于以上假设预计，在疫情未得到缓解的情况下，东亚及太平洋地区的死亡人数为1500万，南亚为760万，拉丁美洲及加勒比地区为300万，撒哈拉以南非洲为250万，中东和北非为170万。而相比之下，欧洲和中亚的死亡人数约为720万，北美约为300万。

Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak and Zachary Barnett-Howell of Yale University, analyzing Imperial College’s forecasting methods, wrote an article for *Foreign Policy* titled “Poor Countries Need to Think Twice About Social Distancing.” In the article, Mobarak and Barnett-Howell argue unequivocally that “epidemiological models clearly show that the cost of non-intervention in wealthy countries would be hundreds of thousands to millions of deaths, a result far worse than the worst imaginable economic recession. In other words, in high-income societies, implementing social distancing interventions and taking aggressive measures to control the pandemic is extremely reasonable, even if it comes at a high economic cost to save lives.” However, they assert that this is not the case for poor countries, because their elderly populations are generally relatively smaller, and according to Imperial College’s estimates, the elderly account for about half of infection-related deaths. They acknowledge that such predictive models “do not account for the higher incidence of chronic diseases, respiratory illnesses, environmental pollution, and malnutrition in low-income countries, factors that could increase mortality from a COVID-19 outbreak.” But the article (and a related study from Yale’s economics department) largely overlooks these model flaws; the authors insist that, given poverty, mass unemployment, and underemployment in these countries, it is better not to implement social distancing or aggressive testing to control the pandemic, but instead to focus on economic production, which, since supply chains are primarily sourced from low-income countries, might maintain the integrity and smooth operation of global supply chains. Undoubtedly, in the authors’ view, sacrificing tens of millions of lives in the developing world for the continued growth of the capitalist empire is a reasonable trade-off.

耶鲁大学的艾哈迈德·穆什菲克·莫巴拉克(Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak)和扎卡里·巴奈特-豪厄尔(Zachary Barnett-Howell)在分析了帝国理工学院的预测方法的基础上，为《外交政策》杂志撰写了一篇题为《穷国需要三思而后行的社交疏离》的文章。莫巴拉克和巴奈特-豪厄尔在文章中观点鲜明，认为“流行病学模型清楚地表明，富裕国家不干预的代价将是数十万到数百万人死亡，其结果远比可以想象到的最严重的经济衰退还要糟糕。换句话说，在高收入社会中实行社交疏离干预，采取积极措施控制疫情，即便为了拯救生命付出高昂的经济代价，也是极其合理的”。然而，他们表明，对贫穷国家而言，情况并非如此，因为他们的老年人口总体相对较少，而根据帝国理工学院的估计，老年人占感染死亡率的一半左右。他们承认，这种预测模型“没有考虑到在低收入国家慢性病、呼吸系统疾病、环境污染和营养不良的发生率更高，而这些因素可能会增加新冠病毒爆发造成的死亡率”。但是，该文章(以及耶鲁大学经济系从事的一项相关研究)在很大程度上忽视了上述模型的缺陷，该文作者坚持认为，鉴于这些国家的贫困、大量失业和就业不足问题，人们最好不要实行社交疏离或积极测试等措施控制疫情，而是要致力于经济生产，由于供应链主要以低收入国家为源头，这也许可以保持全球供应链的完整顺畅。毫无疑问，在该文作者看来，以全球发展中国家数千万人的死亡来换取资本帝国的持续增长是经过权衡利弊后的合理抉择。

As Mike Davis put it, 21st-century capitalism demonstrates that “the eternal discriminatory distinction among humans… leads to the eventual extinction of a part of humanity.” He asks:

正如迈克·戴维斯(Mike Davis)所言，21世纪的资本主义表明，“人类永远存在的不公平的区别对待……导致人类的一部分注定最终灭绝”。他问道:

But what happens when the coronavirus spreads through populations with the least access to medical services, more severe malnutrition and unresolved health problems, and compromised immune systems? For poor youth in the slums of Africa and South Asia, the age advantage will be minimal and negligible.[24]24 The original text’s footnote 18 is omitted here as it is not part of the translation request.

但是，当新冠病毒通过获得医疗服务的机会最少、存在更加严重的营养不良问题和未解决的健康问题以及免疫系统受损问题的人群传播时，会发生什么呢?对非洲和南亚贫民窟中的贫困青年来说，年龄优势将是微乎其微、不值一提的。18

Mass infection in slums and impoverished cities may also flip the switch on the infection pattern of the coronavirus and alter the nature of the disease. Before the emergence of SARS in 2003, epidemics of highly pathogenic coronaviruses were limited to livestock, especially pigs. Researchers quickly recognized two distinct routes of infection: fecal-oral transmission attacking stomach and intestinal tissues; and respiratory transmission attacking the lungs. Mortality in the first case was typically very high, while cases in the second were usually mild. A small proportion of current infections, especially on cruise ships, present with diarrhea and vomiting, and one report states: “The possibility of transmission of the new coronavirus through sewage, waste, contaminated water, air conditioning systems, and aerosols cannot be underestimated.”

贫民窟和贫困城市的大规模感染也可能触动新冠病毒感染模式的开关，并改变疾病的性质。在2003年SARS出现之前，高致病性冠状病毒的流行仅限于家畜，尤其是猪。研究人员很快认识到了两种不同的感染途径:粪口途径传播攻击胃和肠道组织;呼吸道传播攻击肺部。第一种情况下的死亡率通常非常高，而第二种情况下的病例通常症状较轻。目前一小部分感染病例，特别是游轮病例，表现为腹泻和呕吐，一份报告谈道:“新冠病毒通过污水、废物、受污染的水、空调系统和气溶胶传播的可能性不可低估。”

The epidemic has now reached the slums of Africa and South Asia, where fecal contamination is ubiquitous, including in water, homegrown vegetables, and windblown dust. Will this increase the likelihood of intestinal infection? Could this lead to a more lethal infection that might erupt across all age groups, as occurs in animals?

这一流行病现已波及非洲和南亚的贫民窟，那里的粪便污染无处不在，包括水中、自产蔬菜中以及被风吹起的灰尘中。这会增加肠道感染的几率吗?这是否会导致可能在所有年龄群体中爆发的更致命的感染，正如在动物中发生的那样吗?

Davis’s argument makes clear that the position that “active suppression measures such as social distancing should be implemented in rich countries rather than poor ones to respond to this epidemic” is profoundly unethical. This imperialist epidemiological strategy is even more pernicious because it uses the poverty of the global developing-country population—a product of imperialism—as a justification for practices based on Malthusian population theory or social Darwinism. Once implemented, millions would die to ensure the growth of the global economy, primarily for the benefit of those at the top of the capitalist system. From an economic perspective, the global developing countries as a whole are destined to pay the highest price, beyond the direct impact of the epidemic itself. The collapse of global supply chains due to the cancellation of orders from developed countries (along with global social distancing and lockdowns) and the subsequent restructuring of commodity chains will inflict severe damage on entire developing regions.

戴维斯的论证清楚地表明，“应在富国而非穷国施行社交疏离等积极抑制疫情的措施以应对这一流行病”这一立场是极其不道德的。这种帝国主义的流行病学战略更加邪恶，因为他们把帝国主义的产物———全球发展中国家人口的贫困———作为基于马尔萨斯人口论或社会达尔文主义的做法的理由。此举一旦实行，为确保全球经济的增长，数百万人将因此而死亡，而这主要是为了造福处于资本体系顶端的人。从经济学的角度来讲，全球发展中国家整体上除了受到这一流行病的直接影响，注定还要付出最高昂的代价。全球供应链因全球发达国家的订单的取消(及全球社交疏离和封锁)以及随之而来的商品链重新调整而产生的崩溃将导致整个发展中国家和地区遭受重创。

In this regard, we must recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic is unfolding against the backdrop of a global hegemonic economic war launched by the Donald Trump administration against China. Since 2008, China has accounted for 37% of cumulative global economic growth. Due to tariff wars, many U.S. companies have already moved supply chains out of China. However, since about one-third of global intermediate goods are currently produced in China, most in high-tech fields and critical to global labor arbitrage, this attempt at structural adjustment will be extremely disruptive.

在这方面，我们必须认识到新冠病毒大流行是在唐纳德·特朗普政府发动的、针对中国的全球霸权经济战背景下发生的。自2008年以来，中国已占世界经济累计增长的37%。由于关税战，许多美国公司已经把供应链从中国撤出。然而，由于目前全球约有1/3的中间产品在中国生产，其中多数属于高科技领域，这是全球劳动力套利的关键，因此这种结构调整的尝试将极具破坏力。

Some multinational corporations that moved production lines out of China later realized that this decision did not free them from dependence on China. For example, Samsung has begun airlifting electronic components from China to its factories in Vietnam—a destination for companies eager to evade trade-war tariffs. But Vietnam’s economy is also fragile, as it relies heavily on China for materials or intermediate parts. Neighboring Southeast Asian countries are in a similar situation. China is Indonesia’s largest trading partner, and 20% to 50% of Indonesia’s industrial raw materials come from China. In February, factories on Indonesia’s Batam Island had to cope with the depletion of raw materials from China (accounting for 70% of the region’s output). Companies there are considering sourcing materials from other countries, but “it is not easy.” For many factories, the viable option is “complete shutdown.” Entrepreneurs like Fuyao Glass Group founder and Chinese billionaire Cao Dewang predict that after the pandemic, China’s position in global supply chains may be shaken, but at least in the short term “it is difficult to find an economy in the global industrial chain to replace China.” He cites evidence such as the many difficulties posed by “inadequate infrastructure” in Southeast Asian countries, the higher labor costs in developed countries, and the inevitable obstacles rich countries face if they try to rebuild manufacturing at home.

一些将生产线移出中国的跨国公司后来才明白，这一决定并没有使他们摆脱对中国的依赖。例如，三星已经开始从中国空运电子元器件到其在越南的工厂———越南是渴望逃避贸易战关税的公司的目的地。但越南经济也很脆弱，因为其严重依赖中国供应材料或中间部件。邻近的东南亚国家的情况亦与之类似。中国是印尼最大的贸易伙伴，印尼的工业原料中有20%至50%来自中国。今年2月，印尼位于巴淡岛的工厂已经不得不应对来自中国的原材料(占该地区产量的70%)枯竭问题。那里的公司在考虑从其他国家获得材料，但“这并不容易”。对许多工厂来说，可行的选择是“完全停工”。福耀玻璃集团创始人、中国亿万富翁曹德旺等企业家预测，疫情过后，中国在全球供应链中的地位可能会动摇，但至少在短期内“很难在全球产业链中找到一个经济体来取代中国”。他援引了事实为证，比如东南亚国家“基础设施不足”带来的诸多困难，全球发达国家劳动力成本较高，以及富国若要在本国重建制造业所必然面对的障碍等。

Although no prediction can be made regarding the actual duration of the pandemic, the COVID-19 crisis should not be seen as the result of an external force, nor as an unpredictable “black swan” event, but as largely predictable. Today, the expansion and wealth accumulation of capitalist center countries rely mainly on historically low interest rates, high debt, capital inflows from the rest of the world, and financial speculation, yet they face long-term stagnation in production and investment. Inequality in income and wealth is reaching historically unprecedented levels. The world ecological rift has reached a global scale, producing a global environment no longer safe for human habitation. New global pandemic diseases arise on the basis of the global monopoly-finance capital system, which has made itself a primary vector of disease. Whether under neoliberal or neofascist rule, countries around the world are experiencing institutional regression and further escalation of class oppression.

尽管就疫情的实际持续时间而言还无法做出预测，但新冠肺炎危机不应被视作外部力量作用的结果，亦并非不可预测的“黑天鹅”事件，而是大体上可以预测的。今天，资本主义中心国家的扩张和财富积累主要依靠历史性的低利率、高债务、来自世界其他地方的资本流入以及金融投机，但如今，其面临着生产和投资的长期停滞。收入和财富的不平等正在达到历史上空前的程度。世界生态裂痕已经达到了全球范围，正在产生一个不再适合人类安全生活的全球环境。新的全球大流行疾病是在全球垄断金融资本制度的基础上产生的，这种资本已使自己成为疾病的主要媒介。无论是新自由主义还是新法西斯主义掌权，世界各国都在经历制度性的倒退，阶级压迫进一步升级。

The extreme exploitative and destructive nature of this capital system is evident in the fact that blue-collar workers worldwide are, on the one hand, declared indispensable critical infrastructure workers (a concept formally defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security), while on the other hand, these workers produce mostly without protective equipment, while the privileged and the dispensable middle class themselves maintain social distancing. A true lockdown would be broader in scope, requiring state provision and planning to ensure the protection of the entire population, rather than focusing on preserving economic interests. It is precisely because of the class nature of social distancing and access to income, housing, resources, and medical care that the incidence and mortality rates of COVID-19 in the United States are highest among people of color, who face the most severe economic and environmental injustices.[25]25 The original text’s footnote 20 is omitted here as it is not part of the translation request.

该资本体系具有极大的剥削性和破坏性，这是显而易见的，因为事实上，世界各地的蓝领工人一方面被宣布为是不可或缺的关键基础设施工人(美国国土安全部正式确定了这一概念)，另一方面，这些工人却主要在没有防护装备的情况下进行生产，而特权阶层和可有可无的中间阶层自己则保持着社交距离。真正的封锁覆盖面将会更广，需要国家进行供给与规划，以确保全体人民得到保护，而不是专注于保全经济利益。正是由于社交疏离以及获得收入、住房、资源和医疗机会的阶级性质，美国新冠病毒的发病率和死亡率尤以有色人种为最，有色人种面临着最为严重的经济与环境不公。20

IV. Social Production and Global Metabolism

四、社会生产与全球代谢

The theoretical foundation of Marx’s materialist conception is a hierarchy of needs. This means that humans are material beings, part of the natural world, and within the natural world they create their own social world. As material beings, they must first satisfy their material needs—food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and other basic conditions for a healthy life—before they can pursue the higher developmental needs necessary to fully realize human potential.[26]26 The original text’s footnote 19 is omitted here as it is not part of the translation request. However, in class society, the vast majority, the actual producers, are always busy struggling to meet their most basic needs. To this day, this situation has not fundamentally changed. Despite the immense wealth created over centuries, even in the richest capitalist societies, millions of people remain precarious in meeting basic needs such as food security, housing, clean water, healthcare, and transportation—in the United States, three billionaires own assets equivalent to the total wealth of the bottom half of the population.

马克思唯物主义观的理论基础是不同等级的需求。这意味着人类是物质的人，是自然世界的一部分，并在自然世界中创造自己的社会世界。作为物质的人，他们必须首先满足自身的物质需求———衣食住行以及健康生活的其他基本条件，然后才能追求充分实现人类潜力所必需的更高发展需求。19然而，在阶级社会中，绝大多数人，即真正的生产者，总是为满足其最基本的需要而奔波劳碌。时至今日，这种状况并没有得到根本改变。尽管人类在几个世纪以来创造了巨大的财富，但即使是在最富有的资本主义社会，仍有数百万人在粮食安全、住房、清洁水、医疗保健和交通等基本需求方面处于岌岌可危的境遇———在美国，三位亿万富翁所拥有的资产总额相当于半数底层人口的财富总和。

At the same time, local and regional environments are in danger, just as all the world’s ecosystems and the Earth system itself, on which humanity depends for survival, are threatened. The emphasis on global “cost-effectiveness” (a euphemism for cheap labor and land) has led transnational capital to establish a complex global commodity chain system, aimed at maximizing the excessive (hyper-scale) exploitation of labor worldwide, while turning the entire world into a real estate market, a large part of which is agribusiness land. Consequently, economic surplus from the periphery of the global capital system is massively drained, and global commons are plundered. The famous Lauderdale Paradox, proposed by the Earl of Lauderdale in the early 19th century, holds that destroying public wealth is a way to increase private wealth. Today, the entire planet has become the arena for practicing this theory.

与此同时，正如作为人类安身立命之依托的世界所有生态系统和地球系统本身受到威胁一样，地方和区域环境亦处于危险之中。对全球“成本效益”(这是对廉价劳动力和土地的委婉说法)的强调导致跨国资本建立了一个复杂的全球商品链体系，其目的是在全球范围内最大限度地过度(超大规模地)剥削劳动力，同时将整个世界变成一个房地产市场，而其中很大一部分是农业综合企业的经营用地。于是，全球资本体系外围的经济盈余大量流失，全球范围的公用地遭到掠夺。劳德代尔伯爵(Earl of Lauderdale)在19世纪初提出的著名的劳德代尔悖论认为，破坏公共财富是增加私人财富的途径。今天，整个地球都成为了实践这一理论的场域。

As we know, the capital circuit of late imperialism has already maximized the use of the above resources, leading to a rapid global ecological crisis that threatens to engulf human civilization and stirs up a thorough disaster storm. The accumulation of wealth and capital is increasingly inseparable from the proliferation of all kinds of waste. In this disaster, as the United States, at the forefront of the storm, becomes increasingly unstable, its arrogance also grows daily, and the possibility of a new Cold War and thermonuclear destruction increases. Therefore, the *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* moved the hands of its famous Doomsday Clock[27]27 The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock maintained by the *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* since 1947, representing the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe (originally nuclear war, later expanded to include climate change and other threats). Midnight represents "doom." to 100 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight since the Doomsday Clock was established in 1947.

正如我们所知道的，晚期帝国主义的资本循环已经最大限度地利用了上述资源，导致全球范围的生态危机迅猛发展，威胁吞没了人类文明，刮起了一场彻底的灾难风暴。财富积累与资本积累越来越离不开各种废物的扩散。在这场灾难中，随着处于风口浪尖的美国日益变得不稳定，其气焰亦日益嚣张，出现新冷战和热核毁灭的可能性不断加大。因此，《原子科学家公报》将其著名的末日之钟21的指针调至差100秒到午夜的位置，这是自1947年末日之钟设立以来最接近午夜的一次。

The COVID-19 pandemic and the growing threat of more lethal epidemics are likewise products of late imperialist development. Global extraction and expropriation chains have not only destroyed ecology but also disrupted interspecies relations, thereby brewing and manufacturing toxic pathogens. The novel coronavirus is also not the only new global health problem to emerge. The overuse of antibiotics by agribusiness and modern medicine has led to a surge in superbugs, causing increasing numbers of deaths. By mid-century, deaths from superbugs may exceed annual cancer deaths, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a "global health emergency." Due to inequality in all conditions of capitalist class society, infectious diseases have the greatest impact on the working class, the poor, and peripheral populations. Therefore, as Engels and the English Chartists did in the 19th century, the system that pursues wealth accumulation and thereby causes such diseases can be charged with social murder. As suggested by revolutionary advances in epidemiology represented by "One Health" and "Structural One Health," the causes of new epidemics can be traced back to the ecological destruction brought about by capitalism.

新冠肺炎疫情大流行以及日益严峻的更具致命性的流行病威胁，同样是晚期帝国主义发展的产物。全球的开采和征用链不仅破坏了生态，而且破坏了物种之间的关系，从而酝酿制造了有毒病原体。新冠病毒也并非新出现的唯一的全球卫生问题。农业综合企业以及现代医学对抗生素的过度使用导致超级细菌激增，造成了越来越多的人死亡。到本世纪中叶，超级细菌引起的死亡可能超过每年的癌症死亡人数，促使世界卫生组织宣布进入“全球卫生紧急状态”。由于资本主义阶级社会各方面条件的不平等，传染病对工人阶级、穷人以及外围人口的影响最大，因此可以如恩格斯和英国宪章派在19世纪所做的那样，以追求财富积累而造成此类疾病产生的制度应被指控为犯有社会谋杀罪。正如以“同一健康”与“结构性同一健康”为代表的流行病学中的革命性进步所暗示的那样，新流行病的病因可追溯到资本主义带来的生态破坏问题。

Here, the necessity of "the revolutionary transformation of the whole of society" reappears, as it has many times before.[28]28 This phrase alludes to Marx's call in his 1843 letter to Ruge for "the ruthless criticism of everything existing" and the revolutionary transformation of society, a recurring theme in Marxist thought. The logic of contemporary historical development indicates the need to establish a system of social metabolic reproduction based on the commons, that is, associated producers regulate their social metabolism by rationally following the laws of nature, to promote the free development of each individual, and on this basis realize the free development of all, while also conserving energy and protecting the environment. The future of humanity in the 21st century depends neither on the ever-increasing economic and ecological exploitation/expropriation, nor on the intensification of imperialism and war. On the contrary, Marx's advocated "universal freedom" and the maintenance of a sustainable "metabolism of the earth" today determine humanity's present and future, and are even the most urgent need for human survival.

在这里，“整个社会革命改造”的必要性再次重现，就像过去多次发生过的一样。22当代历史发展的逻辑表明，需要建立一个以公有公用地为基础的社会代谢再生产体系，即相关生产者通过合理遵循自然规律来调节其社会新陈代谢，以促进每个人的自由发展，并在此基础上实现一切人的自由发展，同时还要节约能源，保护环境。21世纪人类的未来既不取决于经济与生态开发/征用的与日俱增，也不取决于帝国主义和战争的变本加厉。相反，马克思所主张的“普遍自由”和保持可持续的“地球的新陈代谢”在当今决定着人类的现在和未来，甚至是人类生存的最迫切需要。

Notes

注释

1 See John Bellamy Foster, "Late Imperialism," *Monthly Review*, Vol. 71, No. 3, 2019, pp. 1-19.

1参见John Bellamy Foster，“Late Imperialism”,Monthly Review,Vol.71,No.3,2019,pp.1-19。

2 Labor arbitrage is the transfer of industries that have lost technological advantages and barriers to regions with cheap labor, increasing profits by reducing labor costs. — Translator's note

2劳动力套利是将已失去技术优势与技术壁垒的产业转移至劳动力价格低廉的地区，通过降低人力成本来提高利润。---译者注

3 On global labor arbitrage and commodity chains, see Intan Suwandi, *Value Chains*, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2019, pp. 32-33, pp. 53-54.

3关于全球劳动力套利与商品链，参见Intan Suwandi,Value Chains,New York:Monthly Review Press,2019,pp.32-33,pp.53-54。

4 Evan Tarver, "Value Chain vs. Supply Chain," *Investopedia*, March 24, 2020.

4Evan Tarver，“Value Chain vs.Supply Chain”,Investopedia,March 24,2020．

5 *Selected Works of Marx and Engels*, Vol. 2, People's Publishing House, 2012 edition, pp. 136-140.

5《马克思恩格斯选集》第2卷，人民出版社2012年版，第136-140页。

6 *Capital*, Vol. 1, People's Publishing House, 2004 edition, p. 277.

6《资本论》第1卷，人民出版社2004年版，第277页。

7 Robert G. Wallace, Luke Bergmann, Richard Kock, Marius Gilbert, Lenny Hogerwerf, Rodrick Wallace and Mollie Holmberg, "The Dawn of Structural One Health: A New Science Tracking Disease Emergence Along Circuits of Capital," *Social Science and Medicine*, Vol. 129, 2015, pp. 68-77; Robert G. Wallace, "We Need a Structural One Health," *Farming Pathogens*, August 3, 2012.

7Robert G.Wallace,Luke Bergmann,Richard Kock,Marius Gilbert,Lenny Hogerwerf,Rodrick Wallace and Mollie Holmberg，“The Dawn of Structural One Health:A New Science Tracking Disease Emergence Along Circuits of Capital”,Social Science and Medicine,Vol.129,2015,pp.68-77;Robert G.Wallace，“We Need a Structural One Health”,Farming Pathogens,August 3,2012.

8 See John Bellamy Foster, *The Return of Nature*, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020, pp. 61-64, pp. 172-204; Frederick Engels, *The Condition of the Working Class in England*, Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1984; E. Ray Lankester, *The Kingdom of Man*, New York: Henry Holt, 1911, pp. 31-33, pp. 91-159; Richard Levins, "Is Capitalism a Disease?", *Monthly Review*, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2000, pp. 8-33; Howard Waitzkin, *The Second Sickness*, New York: Free Press, 1983.

8参见John Bellamy Foster,The Return of Nature,New York:Monthly Review Press,2020,pp.61-64,pp.172-204;Frederick Engels,The Condition of the Working Class in England,Chicago:Academy Chicago,1984;E.Ray Lankester,The Kingdom of Man,New York:Henry Holt,1911,pp.31-33,pp.91-159;Richard Levins，“Is Capitalism a Disease?”,Monthly Review,Vol.52,No.4,2000,pp.8-33;Howard Waitzkin,The Second Sickness,New York:Free Press,1983。

9 Rob Wallace, Alex Liebman, Luis Fernando Chaves and Rodrick Wallace, "COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital," *Monthly Review*, Vol. 72, No. 1, 2020, p. 11.

9Rob Wallace,Alex Liebman,Luis Fernando Chaves and Rodrick Wallace，“COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital”,Monthly Review,Vol.72,No.1,2020,p.11．

10 Philip McMichael, "Feeding the World," in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (eds.), *Socialist Register 2007: Coming to Terms with Nature*, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007, p. 180.

10Philip McM ichae,l“Feeding the World”,in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys(eds.),Socialist Register 2007:Coming to Terms with Nature,New York:Monthly Review Press,2007,p.180．

11 Farshad Araghi, "The Great Global Enclosure of Our Times," in Fred Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster and Fredrick H. Buttel (eds.), *Hungry for Profit*, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000, pp. 145-60.

11Farshad Aragh,i“The Great Global Enclosure of Our Times”,in Fred Magdoff,John Bellamy Foster and Fredrick H.Buttel(eds.),Hungry for Profit,New York:Monthly Review Press,2000,pp.145-60．

12 The “bullwhip effect” is a term in economics, referring to a phenomenon of demand variation amplification in the supply chain. It specifically means that when information flows from the end customer to the original supplier, it cannot be effectively shared, causing the information to be distorted and amplified step by step, leading to increasingly larger fluctuations in demand information. The amplification effect of this information distortion looks like a cracking bullwhip in a graph, hence it is vividly called the bullwhip effect. —Translator’s note

12“牛鞭效应”(bullwhip effect)是经济学中的一个术语，指供应链上的一种需求变异放大现象。它具体是指信息流在从最终客户端向原始供应商端传递时，无法有效地实现信息共享，使得信息扭曲而逐级放大，进而导致需求信息出现越来越大的波动。此种信息扭曲的放大作用在图形上很像一个甩起的牛鞭，因此被形象地称为牛鞭效应。---译者注

13 Just-in-time (JIT) production refers to a production model that produces the required products (or components) at the required time and in the required quantity. Its purpose is to accelerate the turnover of semi-finished products, reduce inventory backlog to a minimum, and thereby improve the production efficiency of the enterprise. —Translator’s note

13准时制(Just in Time,JIT)生产是指在所需要的时刻，按所需要的数量生产所需要的产品(或零部件)的生产模式，其目的是加速半成品的流转，将库存的积压减少到最低的限度，从而提高企业的生产效益。---译者注

14 Intan Suwandi, *Value Chains*, pp. 59-61; John Smith, *Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century*, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2016.

14Intan Suwandi,Value Chains,pp.59-61;John Smith,Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century,New York:Monthly Review Press,2016．

15 Stefano Feltr, “Why Coronavirus Triggered the First Global Supply Chain Crisis”, *Pro-Market*, March 5, 2020.

15Stefano Feltr,i“Why Coronavirus Triggered the First Global Supply Chain Crisis”,Pro-Market,March 5,2020.

16 Finbarr Bermingham, Sidney Leng and Echo Xie, “China Ramps Up COVID-19 Test Kit Exports Amid Global Shortage, as Domestic Demand Dries Up”, *South China Morning Post*, March 30, 2020.

16Finbarr Bermingham,Sidney Leng and Echo Xie，“China Ramps Up COVID-19 Test Kit Exports Amid Global Shortage,as Domestic Demand Dries Up”,South China Morning Post,March 30,2020．

17 “COVID-19: Where Is Your Supply Chain Disruption?”, *Future of Sourcing*, April 3, 2020.

17“COVID-19:Where Is Your Supply Chain Disruption?”,Future of Sourcing,April 3,2020.

18 Mike Davis, “Mike Davis on Pandemics, Super-Capitalism, and the Struggles of Tomorrow”, *Mada Masr*, March 30, 2020.

18 Mike Davis，“Mike Davis on Pandemics,Super-Capitalism,and the Struggles of Tomorrow”,Mada Masr,March 30,2020.

19 Lauren Chambers, “Data Show that COVID-19 is Hitting Essential Workers and People of Color Hardest”, *Data for Justice Project*, American Civil Liberties Union, April 7, 2020.

19Lauren Chambers，“Data Show that COVID-19 is Hitting Essential Workers and People of Color Hardest”,Data for Justice Project,American Civil Liberties Union,April 7,2020．

20 *Selected Works of Marx and Engels*, Vol. 2, p. 191.

20《马克思恩格斯选集》第2卷，第191页。

21 The “Doomsday Clock” is established and managed by the *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* magazine. Its midnight zero point symbolizes world catastrophe or doomsday: the closer the clock’s hands point to midnight zero, the greater the risk of a devastating disaster facing the world. —Translator’s note

21“末日之钟”由美国《原子科学家公报》杂志设立和管理，它的午夜零点象征世界灾难或世界末日:时钟指针所指时间距离午夜零点越近，世界面临毁灭性灾难的风险就越大。---译者注

22 *Selected Works of Marx and Engels*, Vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 2012, p. 385.

22《马克思恩格斯选集》第1卷，人民出版社2012年版，第385页。