“More of us are dragged into this every day,” a civil servant tells me, white in the face. In Britain alone, tens of thousands of public-sector employees were “requisitioned” in March: put to work on monumental efforts aimed at countering the pandemic.

COVID-19’s collision with capitalism has forced such reconfigurations of public sectors the world over. As the fallout spreads through the corridors of power, states are being reordered beyond recognition — sidelining the neoliberal assumptions that have, for decades, imposed phony limits on the exercise of official power.

Even more than the public health crisis, the state has to respond to an unprecedented economic shock. In the weeks leading up to April 2, 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment — five times the previous record. The Federal Reserve projects the jobless rate will surpass one-third of the active population — and there is serious talk of US national output halving.