COVID-19 in Bulgaria: Moral Economy as Pandemic Relief

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size AcknowledgmentsThe author is grateful to Madlen Nikolova and Georgi Medarov for their help and suggestions.Notes1 Jana Tsoneva, “‘Lex Corona’ in Bulgaria,” Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, July 4, 2020, https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/41930/lex-corona-in-bulgaria?cHash=8bae7acbc883385af170b295c40b2775.2 E. P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” Past and Present 50, no. (1971): 76–136.3 J. Siméant, “Three Bodies of Moral Economy: The Diffusion of a Concept,” Journal of Global Ethics 11, no. 2 (2015): 163–75.4 Thompson, “Moral Economy,” 98, 112.5 N. Deneva, “Transnational Aging Carers: On Transformation of Kinship and Citizenship in the Context of Migration among Bulgarian Muslims in Spain,” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 19, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 105–28.6 P. A. Dossa and C. Coe, eds. Transnational Aging and Reconfigurations of Kin Work (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017), 144.7 “This Year Bulgarians Working Abroad Are Once Again the Biggest Investor in Bulgarian Economy,” ClubZ, December 24, 2019, https://clubz.bg/92195-i_tazi_godina_bylgarite_zad_granica_sa_naj_golemiqt_investitor_v_bylgariq.8 E. W. Smollett, “The Economy of Jars. Kindred Relationships in Bulgaria,” Ethnologia Europaea, 19, no. 1 (1988).9 C. Humphrey, Marx Went Away but Karl Stayed Behind (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999).10 I. Ivanova and A. Mudeva, “The Bulgarians Produce 209 Million Jars per Year,” dnes.bg, December 23, 2009, https://dnes.dir.bg/obshtestvo/-5602211.11 “1/5 of the Bulgarians Subsist on Grandma’s Jars,” Maritsa.bg, XX, https://www.marica.bg/balgariq/1-5-ot-blgarite-se-izhranvat-s-burkanite-na-baba.12 “The Zimnina Is More Often Procured From the Shop,” bTV, XX, https://btvnovinite.bg/bulgaria/obshtestvo/zimninata-e-vse-po-chesto-ot-magazina.html.13 “IMF: Bulgaria’s Gray Economy Is the Highest in Europe,” Darik News, December 17, 2019, https://dariknews.bg/novini/bylgariia/mvf-sivata-ikonomika-v-bylgariia-e-sred-naj-visokite-v-evropa-2203041.14 N. Draganov, “Bulgaria Broke the Inequality Records Again,” Baricada, April 30, 2020, https://baricada.org/2020/04/30/inequality-2019/.15 The European Commission often scolds Bulgaria’s abysmally inadequate welfare state, stating that it is the only European Union member-state where welfare transfers barely affect poverty and inequality levels. Welfare payments sometimes even entrench and amplify inequality because of workfare reforms, which force welfare claimants to work for their benefits, usually in trash collection, cleaning, public maintenance and so on. Given that the benefits are four to five times lower than the wage they would have collected for doing this work outside the welfare system, workfare creates a reserve labor army that competes with the already badly paid workforce in these sectors and is a legal way of driving the subliving wages lower still.16 Eurostat, “General Government Deficit (−) and Surplus (+)—Annual Data,” XXX, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=teina200.17 V. Grigorova, “Analysis of the Socio-Economic Measures Against the Corona-Crisis, March–July 2020,” September 18, 2020, https://solidbul.eu/analiz-merki/.18 NovaTV, “Plamen Dimitrov: The Unemployed Will Reach 330,000 by the End of the Year,” May 8, 2020, https://bit.ly/2ZeySDw.19 “One-Fifth of Bulgarians Declare No Savings,” Pariteni.bg, April 10, 2020, https://www.pariteni.bg/novini/spestjavane/nad-edna-peta-ot-bylgarite-deklarirat-che-niamat-spestiavaniia-234735.20 N. Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Knopf Canada, 2007).21 Daniela Penkova, personal communication, May 1, 2020.22 In actual fact, instances of domestic violence in Bulgaria spiked throughout the quarantine. See https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/44/52/Add.1.23 R. Mocnik, “Inside the Identity State: Two Types of Fascist Politics,” Eurozine, October 8, 2012, https://www.eurozine.com/inside-the-identity-state/.24 M. Mauss, M. Douglas, and W. D. Halls, The Gift: The Form and reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (London: Routledge, 2002).25 F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).26 A. Tooze, “How Coronavirus Almost Brought Down the Global Financial System,” The Guardian, April 14, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/14/how-coronavirus-almost-brought-down-the-global-financial-system.27 In actual fact, the lockdowns in Europe did not stop international migratory flows, especially of low-paid and precarious workers from the East who were quickly labeled “essential” and flown into West European nursing homes and agricultural fields via “emergency green corridors.”Additional informationNotes on contributorsJana TsonevaJana Tsoneva is a Sofia-based sociologist and a founding member of KOI: an engaged research NGO and publishing house.

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