Pandemic capital or “the new gravity”

This paper aims to highlight a latent evidence emerging from the pandemic phenomenon: Pandemic Capital. By this formula I mean a process of naturalization in regards to the equivalence between the right of a commercial enterprise to profit from its activity and the right of people to protect their own health, or, better, the right to maximize profit as new aspirant fundamental right. This naturalization becomes particularly clear in relation to the question of vaccine patents. The distinction between just (legitimate) profit and maximum profit equates to an updated version of the classic dilemma between nomos (law) and dike (justice), which in Sophocle’s Antigone takes the form of a clash between Kreon and Antigone. Faced with the risk of a legal nihilism, we need to (re)establish a hierarchy of rights that is up to par with our times, namely we must re-contractualize the social contract. To overcome the challenges of a globalized world/pandemic society, we need the neo-contractualism of a social contract that includes a “natural contract” as well. The latter is strictly related to the question of an Open Access Knowledge as new common good. Knowledge also means power, and as such demands responsibility, particularly from scientists and intellectuals. The idea of a human responsibility – or better, “fraternal responsibility” – could therefore represent the basis for a new alliance between nomos and dike for the sake of the polis.