The Commercial Determinants of Three Contemporary National Crises: How Corporate Practices Intersect With the COVID‐19 Pandemic, Economic Downturn, and Racial Inequity

Abstract

Policy Points

•  The United States finds itself in the middle of an unprecedented combination of crises: a global pandemic, economic crisis, and unprecedented civic responses to structural racism.

•  While public sector responses to these crises have faced much justified criticism, the commercial determinants of these crises have not been sufficiently examined.

•  In this commentary we examine the nature of the contributions of such actors to the conditions that underpin these crises in the United States through their market and nonmarket activities.

•  On the basis of this analysis, we make recommendations on the role of governance and civil society in relation to such commercial actors in a post‐COVID‐19 world.