The pandemic begins in Asia, rips through the capital cities of Europe and wipes out at least a third of all human beings in its way. When it is all over, revolts begin, cherished institutions fall, and the entire economic system has to be reconfigured.
That is a short history of the Black Death, a bubonic plague pandemic caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis, which spread from Mongolia to Western Europe in the 1340s.
Because the economy then was based on local agriculture and crafts, ordinary life bounced back relatively quickly.
But, by radically reducing the number of workers, it gave the survivors increased bargaining power, which soon translated into new concepts of liberty among the population of medieval cities.
That, in turn, started a process of economic change that brought an end to the feudal system and, some argue, triggered the rise of capitalism.
Capitalism's plague nightmare
Today, capitalism faces its own plague nightmare. Though the COVID-19 virus may kill between 1 percent and 4 percent of those who catch it, it is about to have an impact on a much more complex economy than the one that existed back in the 1340s - one with a much more fragile geopolitical order, and on a society already gripped with foreboding over climate change.
Let us consider the massive changes the pandemic has already forced.
First, the partial shutdown of daily life in large parts of China, India, most of Europe and numerous states in America.
Second, significant damage to the reputations of governments and political elites who either denied the seriousness of the crisis, or in the initial stages proved incapable of mobilising their healthcare systems to meet it.
Third, an immediate slump in consumer spending across all major economies which is certain to provoke the deepest recession in living memory: share prices have already collapsed and this, in turn, hurts middle-class families whose pension funds have to invest in shares. Meanwhile, the solvency of airlines, airports and hotel chains is in doubt.
In response, states have launched economic rescue packages so massive that most people have not yet got their heads around the implications. The US government will inject two trillion dollars into the economy - through a mixture of direct payments to citizens and loans to business - more than half of what it collects in taxes in a year.
Meanwhile, the central banks have switched to a new and aggressive form of quantitative easing. Just as after the last global financial crisis in 2008, they will create new money to buy up government debt - but this time, it is not going to be gradual, or focused on the safest government bonds. Introduced as a panic measure in 2008, it seems quantitative easing could be with us for decades.
Politicians are busy reassuring voters that it will be a "V-shaped recession" - a sharp slump followed by a bounce-back, because the "real economy", they claim, is sound.
Collapsing foundations
To understand why that is over-optimistic, let us use the metaphor of a building.
In the 2008 financial crisis, it looked like the "roof" - the finance system - had collapsed onto the main structure which, though it was damaged, stood firm and we eventually rebuilt the roof.
This time, by contrast, it is the foundations that are collapsing - because all economic life in a capitalist system is based on compelling people to go to work and spend their wages.
Since we now have to compel them to stay away from work, and from all the places they usually spend their hard-earned salaries, it does not matter how strong the building itself is.
In fact, the building is not that strong. Much of the growth we have experienced during the 12 years since the last financial crisis has been fuelled by central banks printing money, governments bailing out the banking system and debt.
Instead of paying down debt, we amassed an estimated $72 trillion more of it.
Unlike the time of the bubonic plague, 21st-century trade and finance systems are complex - which, as we learned in 2008, means they are fragile.
Many of the assets circulating in the finance system are - just as in the run-up to the 2008 crisis - complicated bundles of IOUs issued by banks, insurance groups and other financial companies. Their value lies in the fact that they give the holder a claim on future income.
Our gym memberships, our student loan repayments, our rents, our car repayments this year, next year and beyond are already counted as "paid", with people in the finance system taking sophisticated bets on how much they are worth.
But what happens when we do not go to the gym, do not buy a new car? Some of those IOUs become worthless and the financial system has to be bailed out by the state.
aljazeera.com