Skip to main content

The Myth of Cooperation

From the series Vaccines and world contention

There are by now ten authorised vaccines already in use against SARSCoV-2, and there are 77 countries in which vaccinations are taking place. By mid-February, 173 million doses had been administered and the campaign is proceeding at an average rate of six million a day, calculated on the basis of last week’s figures. At this pace, it would take 5 years to vaccinate 75% of the world population with two doses [Bloomberg, February 15th].

More than half of the injections have been carried out in the United States, the UK, and the European Union which, together, account for 11% of the world population. In at least one third of the 77 surveyed countries, less than 1% of the population have received their first dose of the vaccine, and, in the rest of the world, vaccines have not yet arrived.

Imperialist globalisation

Individual states are pursuing autonomous solutions to a global problem. Epidemiologists believe that, while a vast proportion of the population is still susceptible to the virus in the next few months, the increase in the number of persons who have been vaccinated or who have acquired natural immunity thanks to infection will produce a selective pressure that will favour the spread of new variants. These new strains will be potentially more dangerous due to increased contagiousness and virulence [Financial Times, February 9th].

It is a question of timing and internatonal coordination. Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, writes that the response of govemments to COVID-19 represents the greatest political failure of Western democracies since the Second World War [The COVID-19 Catastrophe, 2020]. In his book, written in the ‘first phase’ of the pandemic, he examines the shortcomings of both the scientific community and the world leaderships, and the lessons learnt. Here we report only one of them: COVID-19 […] has also exposed our inability to cooperate, to coordinate and to act together, since national interests and rivalries have prevailed.

The need for a coordinated global effort that involves, most of all, the richest parts of the world, is highlighted by many experts and commentators. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, paying particular attention to the economic damage the pandemic has already caused, writes that no event since the second world war has better demonstrated the limits of national autonomy and that the costs of an inward-looking policy of health in one country are not just narrowly economic. In order to halt the virus and to allow the recovery of normal trade, world leaders must do ‘whatever it takes’ to finance accelerated production and distribution of vaccines — and, if necessary, reformulated vaccines — globally, regardless of the expense, which would be incomparably less than the $5,600 billion of extra fiscal expense borne by the advanced economies in order to respond to the pandemic [February 10th].

The appeals to international cooperation are justified, even if they betray the fear that the part of the world left to itself will also drag the richer economies into the abyss, We should observe, however, that the incapacity to organise a joint, unitary action on a global scale is not a ‘dysfunction’: competition and rivalry among the economic groups, and struggles among the imperialist states for the division of spheres of interest and areas of influence, are ‘physiological’ in the capitalist social system. Unification of the world market does not mean the humankind without frontiers and class divisions; globalism does not mean internationalism.

New arrivals

On January 25th, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) authorised a third vaccine, after those of BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna. Created by the University of Oxford, it was developed in collaboration with AstraZeneca and is already accepted in 27 other countries. AstraZeneca arose in 1999 out of the merger between the British company Zeneca and the Swedish company Astra, and is among the top ten Big Pharma companies with a $24.4 billion turnover and 70,000 employees; at the end of 2019 it was operating with 25 production sites in 16 countries. Before the pandemic it had a marginal presence in the world vaccines market.

The two-dose Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine uses the tried and tested ‘viral vector’ technique. This technology, we recall, utilises a genetically modified virus, which is incapable of replicating itself, to transmit the genetic instructions (a fraction of the viral DNA) to human cells for the production of coronavirus spike protein. This protein will become the target of the immune system. The ‘carrier’ virus is a chimpanzee adenovirus (which causes light infections in humans such as the common cold).

According to the results made known in the latest clinical tests, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine proved to be 82% effective with two doses at a distance of 12 weeks, significantly higher than with the previously observed six-week-intervalresults [The New York Times, February 319.

Political wars and trade wars

The EMA has conditionally authorised the distribution of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (pending further data from the company) for those over 18 years old. The Agency has not placed other age limits, but it has specified that there are not yet sufficient results in participants who are more than 55 years old. While this ‘recommendation’ has been adopted by other European regulatory bodies in Italy, France and Germany, the limit has been set for people who are 65 or older.

This is not the only ’stumbling block’ for Oxford/AstraZeneca. After the initial blunder regarding dosages and the intervals between the two injections, difficulties arose over respecting the delivery times of the doses promised to the European Union: these difficulties led to a commercial contention and a political clash with Britain over respecting the Brexit agreements to keep open the Irish borders.

The European Commission, under pressure from Germany, introduced controls on exports of vaccines produced in the Union in order to understand — said the German Health Minister Jens Spahn — whether the Union’s contracts with producers were being equally respected [Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 25th). The Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides specified that the EU wants to know exactly which doses have been produced by AstraZeneca and where exactly so far and if or to whom they have been delivered. [Financial Times, January 26th]. The EU’s ‘protectionism’ came under fire from other countries such as Canada and Japan, concerned about supplies from Europe.

The slowdown in supplies — not only on the part of AstraZeneca — led to accusations being levelled against the management of vaccine supplies on the part of the EU, which centralised their anticipated purchases on behalf of all of its member states. The European Commission, argues Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times, saw the pandemic as a great opportunity to expand EU powers, showing a degree of ‘incompetence’ in handling trade agreements (February 2nd).

Vaccines and vaccinations, slower in Europe than in Britain and the United States, are being brandished in the confrontation among the powers. The Economist is even blunter: if the European Union wants to find its competitive spirit, then a vaccination race is the perfect place. For a bloc with global pretensions […] there is more at stake than health. If a group including some of the world’s most successful societies cannot vaccinate their populations swiftly, then any pretensions that the EU is a potential superpower look ridiculous [January 23rd]. This argument could be extended to the USA, a scientific and technological superpower: this giant in the scientific field has not succeeded in exploiting its knowledge within national policies in order to respond to the pandemic, writes Horton [op. cit.].

Industrial battles

In any case, the Commission has taken a step forward in European integraton, towards the realisation of a Europe de la santé Europe of the healthcarel invoked by French President Emmanuel Macron as early as May of last year. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, defended the centralisation of purchases, adopted to protect the smaller states who have less negotiating power with vaccine companies, but she recognised she had underestimated production problems.

Productive capacity is the crucial point. Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca promised overall production of six billion doses this year. To make a comparison, the annual European production of fu shots (including Britain) is estimated by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) to be 1.7 billion doses, made in 27 production sites across 11 countries.

We have already observed that the strategic risk of dependence on foreign supplies in the health sector has been denounced for some time in Europe (and also in the USA). The EFPLA warns of the risk of a trade war in the new European rules: Moreover, given the global nature of vaccine supply lines, the proposal from the Commission might […] risk retaliatory measures from other regions, putting the supply of manufacturing matrials needed to produce COVID-19 vaccines and consumables related to the provision of those vaccines at risk. Retaliation measures could also extend the scope of the disruption to medicines and other products. [EFPLA, January 29th].

Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, stresses that the pandemic has increased the vulnerability of certain supply chains, and that the EU must create its own capacity in such key sectors as the pharmaceutical industry [Financial Times, May 6th]. On September 17th 2020 the European Parliament approved a resolution in which it asked the Commission to use the upcoming pharmaceutical strategy to [restore] the EU’s health independence and to increase the production of medicines and the level of innovation within the EU. Currently, 40% of the medicines on the market in the EU come from third countries [i.e., non-EU countries], while 60-80% of their active pharmaceutical ingredients are produced in China and India.

Global cooperation or global competition? The nation states are choosing ‘every man for himself’, and the Big Pharma groups are fighting for the carve-up of the world market.

Lotta Comunista, February 2021

Labels:

Popular posts in the last week

Reckless Bets on Migrants in California

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 11 From the series Chronicles of the new American nationalism The tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on allies, partners and opponents of the United States have opened a phase of negotiations with the affected countries and caused reactions from some key States. The legal opposition from almost all areas of the US poses a test: whether States, courts, and Congress can influence trade policy and constrain the expansion of executive powers. Amid conflicting rulings, the tariffs have been reinstated – an outcome that, The New York Times remarks, has “left Washington, Wall Street, and much of the world trying to discern the future of US trade policy”. California’s dispute with the federal government has expanded to immigration policy and the domestic use of military force. The political, economic, and power struggles overlap with the electoral dimension. The establishment remains critical of or ...
Read more

The EU Commission Plans for Rearmament and a Clean Industrial Deal

Internationalism No. 71, January 2025 Page 2 From the series European news Following the European elections which took place on June 6th - 9th, the leaders of the Member States met on June 27th at the European Council. Ursula von der Leyen was nominated as president of the next European Commission, after she was chosen as the European People’s Party’s (EPP) Spitzenkandidat (“leading candidate”). The agreement also included the election of former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa as president of the European Council, and the appointment of former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Subsequently, on July 18th, Parliament elected von der Leyen as president of the Commission by an absolute majority, with 401 votes out of 719 MEPs. On September 17th, von der Leyen presented her team of commissioners to the European Parliament and, two days later, the Council adopted this list of...
Read more

THE UNITARY IMPERIALISM ISSUE

Chapter Six   In 1951 Europe, and the world, was shrouded in mist. The ‘Cold War’ ideology ruled, and the war in Korea made a world conflict between the USA and the USSR seem a real possibility. In France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy, the talk was of rearmament. Europe, at that time urged by the USA, was planning the EDC (European Defence Community) to keep step with German rearmament. The concept of a ‘ unitary imperialism ’ was the strategic choice that helped the small GAAP group remain politically independent. But translating this into an ‘Internationalist Third Front’ slogan was unfortunate. It facilitated a link with French libertarian communists, but could also cause confusion with its suggestion of a ‘Third Force’ between the USA and the USSR, which in Europe was supported by important bourgeois currents. Although opposition to unitary imperialism consolidated the internationalist struggle, the theory required to be developed and per...
Read more

LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM: A DIFFERENT KIND OF COMMUNISM

Chapter Three LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM: A DIFFERENT KIND OF COMMUNISM   An examination of the debate within the groups that were to create GAAP (Anarchist Groups of Proletarian Action) gives a vivid picture of the problems that between 1948 and 1951 had to be slowly and painfully faced. Three major confrontations, progressively more serious, took place between Cervetto and Masini in the autumn of 1949 and again in the spring and autumn of 1950. As preparations were being made for the National Conference at Pontedecimo – from which GAAP would be born – debate on the nature of the organisation and on theories of the State and imperialism began to define the characteristics of the new political group, but also revealed the differences. The first step had been to look for ‘a different kind’ of communism in anarchism. Along this road Cervetto , with an ever-surer grasp, would raise the issue that had been first posed by Marx and Lenin : our militant...
Read more

Lotta Comunista: The Origins 1943-1952

Guido La Barbera Contents 9. Preface to the English Edition 13. Preface 19. Useful dates 21. Chapter One «ONE OUGHT TO KNOW WITH WHOM ONE IS DEALING» 25. The balance-of-power theory 27. Theory and the ‘strategy-party’ 29. Chapter Two THE FOUNDRY AND THE PARTISAN STRUGGLE 31. The Savona group 39. Passion disciplined by reason 40. Never again a tool in the hands of others 41. The Genoa group 46. The Sestri Ponente group 48. The groups in Rome and Tuscany 52. The strength of GAAP: ‘only a handful’ 55. Chapter Three LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM: A DIFFERENT KIND OF COMMUNISM 58. Reckoning with Bordiga...
Read more

Show Warfare?

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 16 After show politics and show diplomacy , have we sunk to the obscenity of show warfare ? On the surface, this is true. The Pentagon’s video game-style communications, where airstrikes, missile launches, and deadly explosions are set to music for social media clips, certainly suggest so. It matters little that a hundred schoolgirls were also blown to bits as artificial intelligence took centre stage on the battlefield. In reality, war propaganda has always showcased destruction and mocked the enemy; today in Washington, in the era of the high-tech groups of television and social media democracy , the only thing that has changed is the style and the means used to inflame fanaticisms and stuff people’s brains. In Tehran, dominated by a parasitic bourgeoisie that feeds on oil revenues and is intertwined with the militias and hierarchies of t...
Read more

Forward Deterrence for European Imperialism

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 3 From the series European news The next half-century will be the age of nuclear weapons . This was the grim prediction with which Emmanuel Macron concluded his speech on nuclear deterrence, delivered on March 2 nd at the Île Longue submarine base. Standing before Le Téméraire , the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine that carries a strike force equivalent to the sum of all the bombs dropped on Europe during the Second World War , the president announced a significant evolution in French nuclear doctrine. The emergence of new threats and the realignment of American priorities make it necessary, according to Macron, not only to strengthen deterrence by increasing the number of nuclear warheads, but also to rethink the deterrence strategy deep inside the European continent . His proposal is the gradual implementation o...
Read more

The National Gamble of Poland

Internationalism No. 33, November 2021 Page 3 From the series European News In a lawsuit brought by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Constitutional Tribunal, which is composed of judges chosen by the government, ruled that fundamental parts of the EU Treaty are incompatible with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. This ruling thus denies the primacy of European law over national law, undermining both the political assumption of continental integration and the supranational character of the EU . Vectors of Polish history We can shed light on this event if we consider the four field vectors that cross Poland: its traditional ethnic-religious nationalism, its marked Atlantic tropism, the objective attraction exerted by the European force field, and the looming threat of Russia. The general picture is global collisions: China’s irruption and the crisis in the world order have put pressure on Warsaw to define its st...
Read more

American Unknowns in the Crisis in the World Order

Plurality of Powers and the Atlantic Crisis Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Pages 1 and 2 In general terms, the United States is [the model of] society we will arrive at in a few years . It was 1962 and Arrigo Cervetto was addressing the conference of the Movement of the Communist Left, pointing to the American script as the direction in which Italian society was developing: the accelerated disintegration of the peasant world, the growth of a vast industrial proletariat, the emergence of white-collar workers , and the wage-earning strata of the service sector. The Americanisation of Italian and European society was driven primarily by the laws of capitalist development and class change, but, to some extent, it also influenced political forms through the transformation of social psychologies. I thought Marx’s observation that the most advanced capitalist country shows the way forward to the most backward was valid , Cervetto commented twenty year...
Read more

India’s Weaknesses in the Global Spotlight

Farmers’ protests around New Delhi have been going on for four months now. A controversial intervention by the Supreme Court has suspended the implementation of the new agticultural laws, but has raised questions about the dynamics between the judiciary and the executive, and has failed to unblock the negotiations between government and peasant organisations. The assault by Sikh farmers on the Red Fort during the Republic Day parade as India was displaying its military might to the outside world — the Chinese Global Times maliciously noted — paradoxically widened the protest in the huge state of Uttar Pradesh. The Modi government has been trying to revive India’s image with the 2021 Union Budget: it announced one hundred privatisations and approved the increase to 75% of the limit on direct foreign investment in insurance companies. For The Indian Express ( IEX ) this is a sign of the commitment to push ahead with reforms despite the backlash from rural India. Also for The Economi...
Read more