The End of Capitalism and Decolonial Human Rights in the Face of COVID-19

Abstract

This article begins with Wallerstein's reflection on the end of capitalism and the observation that we are living in a transitional period where the main question is not limited to predicting whether capitalism will survive, but rather what will succeed it. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the ills caused by the capitalist system and the uncertainty about the future. Could a better world be built through collective struggles and ethical individual choices (more egalitarian and democratic), or a worse one (more polarized and exploitative)? In this context, what would be the role of Human Rights? This article sought to understand the role of decolonial human rights in the context of the end of capitalism and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The theoretical framework included decolonial theory and Wallerstein's world-systems concepts (2011), Mbembe's necropolitics and subaltern working class (2014, 2016), Santos' epistemologies of the South and abyssal line (2009, 2019), and the perspectives on decolonial human rights by Santos and Martins (2019) and Maldonado-Torres (2019). From the perspective of decolonial thought, an ontological limitation of human rights is evident, which could be overcome through a new interpretation of the concept of human dignity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to update what constitutes a dignified life and to bring visibility to the subaltern class, both new and old, in its intersectionality. Minorities have been and continue to be affected differently due to factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, health, and socioeconomic status, with populations accumulating categories of discrimination being at greater risk of illness and death. Thus, the importance of decolonial human rights lies in broadening the understanding of human dignity while identifying social injustices, relating them to past contexts, and linking them to the responsibility of individual and state choices.