Hegel and Netflix

Abstract

The covId-19 pandemic does not in itself constitute a crisis of capitalism; rather, it compounds existing problems within the capitalist mode of production. The precarious status of essential workers, regardless of their living condition, has worsened. By contrast, as a result of valorizing the market above all else, unrestricted capitalist accumulation has been more efficient and has exacerbated social inequality. These contradictory consequences of the pandemic situation prove that capitalism does not need workers for its completion. The pandemic has served less as a moment to mark the end of capitalism than as yet another moment to sustain its paradox. Indeed, what we are seeing at the moment are the more traumatic experiences of capitalist restructuring. Some critics use the concept of "shock doctrine" to explain how capitalism survives the process of disasters. Naomi Klein's theory of the shock doctrine, her critique of the Chicago School, is based on the assumption that "the human cost of shock therapy" is tactically designed to control the working class. 1 The foundation of shock doctrine is undoubtedly the human behavioural realm and it essentially requires a disruption in the social relations of production. However, given its current prevalence, disaster capitalism seems to achieve its culmination by erasing the working class itself. By that I do not mean the removal of workers but the modification of work as such. In the current pandemic this modification dramatically evolves to the idea of mechanical management based on surveillance technology. In other words, the mechanization of work-a perversion of