Care and COVID 19: Lessons for liberals and neoliberals

Abstract

Within the liberal political traditions, care is regarded as a private matter, a problem of ethics rather than justice. Social justice is framed as an issue of economics (re/distribution), culture (recognition) and/or politics (representation). The pandemic challenged this liberal patriarchal paradigm; it placed the care relational lives of human beings centre stage in terms of social justice, not only in terms of who did or did not do the caring, who was and was not cared for, but who was capable of caring while balancing paid‐work time with care‐work time. The pandemic also challenged dominant ontological assumptions about the human condition, especially assumptions about invulnerability and autonomy that are so pervasive in a neoliberal capitalist era. The vulnerability of the human body came into sharp relief, especially in Western countries where infectious diseases were assumed to be under control. The autonomy myth was shattered too, as unforeseen and uncontrollable social isolation created emotional and relational vulnerabilities. People learned, often in painful ways how the loss of companionship diminished their sense of who they were. Above all, the pandemic demonstrated that the both the personal and professional care infrastructure of societies is foundational to economic, political, cultural and environmental life. It highlighted how affective equality, that is, equality in the doing and receiving of love care and solidarity, is a key dimension of social justice. Consequently, it taught a lesson on why a care/needs‐based concept of justice is as important as a rights‐based theory and why one is incomplete without the other.