Paper #2

Irmina Shareef
Vega
SOC 100
10 April 2022
What is the relationship between COVID, capitalism, and inequality?
COVID-19 has impacted a lot of people’s lives within the last couple of years and has left
a huge impact on our society. It has shaped the health systems in place, political views, and our
economy. Capitalism has its own advantages and disadvantages within our society. It allows us
to encourage innovation, provides some freedom, and increases production and efficiency.
Although some disadvantages include creating more inequality, contributing to market failures,
and damage to the environment. Our book defines capitalism as “an economic system in which
there is private ownership (as opposed to state ownership) and where there is an impetus to
produce profit, and thereby wealth” (Griffiths, 2015). Inequality has been a huge issue in our
world and has yet to change unfortunately. People every day suffer from being treated differently
based on their gender, race, sexuality, and much more. COVID-19 has truly caused those with
different skin colors, backgrounds, vulnerabilities, and genders to be judged and face inequality
in our society. The relationship between COVID, capitalism, and inequality is interrelated yet
diverse because COVID is an intersectional phenomenon that plays a role in analyzing our social
and economic status consequences since the pandemic began.
This pandemic has exposed our society to various structural flaws of global capitalism
and it has led to many forms of inequality. This disease started out as a public health crisis but
has now developed into an economic and social crisis. This widespread disease has caused one of
the greatest global recessions and the never before seen scale of the disruption of the movement
of people, products, and services. Capitalism has been creating greater inequality for the past few
decades and we have to restructure and bring out the positive aspects of capitalism. Which
includes greater public spending on health, education, and redistributive policies that rectify
inequality. Putting these into effect can serve to boost employment for the poor and much more.
In order to get to a newer and improved capitalism system, it requires migration to escape
poverty, lack of full-time employment, and lastly creating an environment where there is focus
on short-term success. Another huge issue in the world is that there is not an even distribution of
wealth, especially when it comes to women. Griffith (2015) stated “This is a worldwide
phenomenon known as the ‘feminization of poverty’ – which acknowledges that women
disproportionately make up the majority of individuals in poverty across the globe.” Many
women struggle to survive in our society because they tend to have a lower income and standard
of living than males. It is quite unfair for there to be such a gap in all aspects of life when it
comes to gender. COVID on top of all of these already present issues just hinders us more and
keeps setting us back instead of improving ang changing what’s “normal” nowadays. Capitalism
has truly influenced inequality, whether it’s one’s social class, race, education, and even power.
COVID-19 has also played a major role in creating more unfair opportunities for a lot of
people in our world. Not only has there been discrimination for race, religion, and gender but
now being disabled or even a little overweight. There have been many attacks towards
overweight and disabled people and them connecting it to COVID. One source states, “Prejudice
against people in marginalized bodies is deadly” (Gardiner, 2020). It is very true because if you
aren’t fitting the socially acceptable body form, then you are deemed less than by the rest of
society. There have been discussions that obese people have brought these health risks associate
with COVID upon themselves and they shouldn’t have eaten that much in the first place to gain
all that weight. One article states, “People with underlying medical problems may get ranked
lower, yet lower-income people and people of color often have more health problems because
they cannot afford top-notch care” (Baker & Fink, 2020). Our health care system that is in place
is truly unfair and a little bit corrupt. Hospitals should not be able to pick and choose who they
give treatment to based on their skin color, age, or economic status. Another point would be
discussions about hate towards Chinese people just because that is where the disease originated.
It is very unfair that they have to listen to others being rude and telling them to stay away from
them just because of their race. Another article states, “Structural racism and other forms of
inequality in our society have been long linked to worse health outcomes, including higher rates
of diabetes and hypertension (two likely Covid-19 risk factors) among people in oppressed
groups” (Harrison, 2020). These past struggles within the health care system are now being fully
shown and because of the systemic inequalities, there are higher rates of exposure to the virus yet
not enough access to the proper medical care. Inequality was always present in the world at
large, but now with this pandemic there has been an uprise of prejudice and discrimination.
Instead of standing together during this unknown virus and epidemic, there is more hatred and
divided sides.
COVID-19, capitalism, and inequality are extremely interrelated and all contribute to the
state of our society since this pandemic began. A rethinking of capitalism requires that the
primary focus should be on the distribution of economic power rather than the unequal
distribution of economic power, and more towards the potential leading causal factor of driving
inequality. All of these structural flaws have emulated through the intense increase of
inequalities with the dynamics of wealth, race, gender, and much more. The pandemic has
magnified and aggravated this vicious cycle that is hindering the improvement of our capitalist
system in place, therefore leading to more inequality.
Works Cited
Baker, Mike, and Sheri Fink. “At the Top of the COVID-19 Curve, How ... - The New York
Times.” The New York Times, 31 Mar. 2020,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/us/coronavirus-covid-triage-rationing-ventilators.html.
Gardiner, Finn. “Fatphobia, Ableism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Disability Visibility
Project, 30 Mar. 2020, https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2020/03/30/fatphobia-
ableism-and-the-covid-19-pandemic/.
Griffiths, Heather. “9.2 Social Stratification and Mobility in the United States.” Introduction to
Sociology 2e, OpenStax, 2015.
Griffiths, Heather. “18.1 Economic Systems.” Introduction to Sociology 2e, OpenStax, 2015.
Harrison, Christy. “Covid-19 Does Not Discriminate by Body Weight.” Wired, Conde Nast, 17
Apr. 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-does-not-discriminate-by-body-weight/.

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Irmina Shareef

What is the relationship between COVID, capitalism, and inequality?

and economic status consequences since the pandemic began.

phenomenon known as the ‘feminization of poverty’ – which acknowledges that women

system in place, therefore leading to more inequality.

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