The ongoing pandemic is an example of a planetary failure, i.e., the simultaneous failure of social and technical systems across the world. It's the new normal. Just this past year alone we have had worries about climate change induced fires and floods in both hemispheres, now we have a pandemic.
The single biggest challenge of the 21st century is planetary governance, of creating systems that help human and nonhuman beings flourish everywhere on earth.
We make a mistake in thinking state socialism is the challenger to capitalism as the most important system of terrestrial knowledge. Instead, the real challenge comes from ecology, not from economy. The mania for growth built into capitalism isn't compatible with the steady state nature of ecological systems as a whole.
