When we imagine the four horsemen of the apocalypse, we think of War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death operating together to devastate human populations. But the current pandemic has shown there is a fifth rider in this malevolent troop: Work. From Singapore to Paris, COVID-19 has become entrenched in communities of precarious, low-wage workers. Unsafe working conditions and ongoing labor casualization have facilitated the spread of the virus across the world.

While we associate these conditions with the latest phase of capitalism, the interwoven dynamic of pandemics, labor regimes, and class struggle dates back seven centuries. There have been three major cycles: the Black Death hammered a stake through the heart of European feudalism in the fourteenth century; the European invasion of the Americas, with its accompanying wave of pandemics, aided in the birth of capitalism; and the last two centuries have seen a sequence of global pandemics accelerate alongside deforestation and the expansion of industrial capitalism. At every stage of this seven-hundred-year saga, the outcomes of class conflicts have been influenced by how workers and rulers respond to pandemics. The aftermath of the current crisis will be no exception.