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Don't Let Another Crisis Go to Waste: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Imperative for a Paradigm Shift

How Capitalism Depends on Non-Market Activities

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how globalized, market-based economies critically depend on a foundation of nonmarket goods, services, and productive activities that interact with capitalist institutions. This paper by PERI researcher James Heintz and co-authors shows how lessons from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic provide insights about the future of our economies and, specifically, how to address a trio of interlocking crises: care work, environmental degradation, and macroeconomic consequences. Drawing on these lessons, Heintz and co-authors argue for a necessary paradigm shift and discuss the implications of such a shift for social and economic policies.

>> Read article published by Feminist Economics Journal
This paper is part of the "Beyond COVID-19: A feminist plan for sustainability and social justice" project, developed by UN Women 

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how globalized, market-based economies critically depend on a foundation of nonmarket goods, services, and productive activities that interact with capitalist institutions and impact market economies. These findings, long argued by feminist economists, have profound implications for how we think about our economic futures. This paper shows how lessons from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic can inform how people think about the future of our economies and, specifically, how to address a trio of interlocking crises: care work, environmental degradation, and macroeconomic consequences. Drawing on these lessons, this paper argues for a necessary paradigm shift and discusses the implications of such a shift for social and economic policies.

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