ABSTRACT
An enormous redistribution of wealth occurred while the economy was suspended. A few enterprises and individuals show their profits and wealth skyrocket during the pandemic —some because of it. State policy (across the US, EU and UK) actively contributed to this concentration of wealth, and transferred the cost of the economic crisis on workers and small enterprises. Further, the state directly distributed public wealth to private capital through economic support programmes and public health expenditure. It did so under emergency rules and, in the UK, this undertake bears pronounced marks of corruption. The generosity of the state towards capital is matched — in the UK, France and Greece— by a commensurate meanness towards working people, regarding whom the state has embarked on a policy of pauperisation.
