Whereas in a war, there are political and military hierarchies that determine the likelihood of being deployed to the battlefield and so the probability of dying in combat, killer pathogens have been blind to wealth, class, age, gender, and race. At least in theory, viruses, bacteria, and germs are perfect equalizers. Long stretches of high inequality have typically been followed by bursts of violent compression, owing to cataclysmic events like wars, revolutions, natural disasters, and, yes, pandemics. Going further back in history-from pharaonic Egypt to tsarist Russia, Victorian England, the Ottoman Empire, and China under the Qing dynasty-the pattern has been the same: Wealth tends to concentrate in the hands of a privileged elite.Īlthough inequality has been a persistent feature of civilization, it has not been constant. In the United States, for example, income inequality is just as high now as it was in the years leading up to the 1929 stock market crash. Yet while today’s level of income inequality is alarming, it is hardly exceptional by historical standards. Rising inequality is widely regarded as the defining economic challenge of our time. One of those effects is that disasters like pandemics have typically led to a reduction of inequality. Still, the worry surrounding the news offers a useful opportunity to reflect on some of the lesser understood effects of disease outbreaks-now and in history. And unlike in the past (and unlike the COVID-19 pandemic today), bubonic plague is a well-understood disease that can be effectively treated with antibiotics when it is contracted. Every year, there are a few hundred cases across the world-most recently in Inner Mongolia. To be sure, this is not the start of a new calamity.
In a year already defined by an unprecedented pandemic, this week California confirmed a case of the bubonic plague-the horrific infectious disease that devastated Europe for centuries.
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