Imagine being told that all schools will be closed, all public gatherings will be cancelled. Hundreds of millions of people around the world will be put out of work, billions told not to leave their homes and governments launching some of the largest bail-outs in history while landlords are stopped from collecting rent and banks letting mortgage payments to fall into arrears while the homeless are housed in hotels free of charge. Governments are helicoptering cash payments to households, writing out checks, and some on the Right are even adopting the left-wing idea of the universal basic income. Would you have believed what you were hearing?
There is a pessimistic view is that the pandemic crisis inflames xenophobia and racist scape–goating.
Mike Davis, author of the 2005 book, “The Monster at Our Door. The Global Threat of Avian Flu” explains that “In a totally rational world, you might assume that an international pandemic would lead to greater internationalism. In a rational world, we would be ramping up production of basic essential supplies – test kits, masks, respirators – not only for our own use, but for poorer countries, too. Because it’s all one battle. But it’s not necessarily a rational world. So there could be a lot of demonisation and calls for isolation. Which will mean more deaths and more suffering worldwide.”
Some populist and demagogue politicians have blamed foreigners for COVIS-19 and have embarked upon unilateral nationalist policies rather than coordinated with neighbouring nations. In a 2008 report on the legal aspects of pandemic response, prompted by the increase in pandemic flu outbreaks, a team of historians and medical ethicists assembled by the American Civil Liberties Union suggested that “People, rather than the disease, become the enemy.”
However there is another way of responding to a global pandemic.
Long before COVID-19, people died of diseases we knew how to prevent and treat. People lived precarious lives in societies awash with wealth. Experts told us about catastrophic threats on the horizon, such as climate change, and we did next to nothing to prepare for them. We are now aware of the extent of that can be accomplished (and quickly!) when we understand the urgency of the threat and risk. We have learned that the market cannot provide solutions to protect the public good.
The task today is not to fight the pandemic in order to return to business as usual, because business as usual was already a disaster. The goal, instead, is to fight the virus – and in doing so transform business as usual into something more humane.
“We’ve been trying for years to get people out of normal mode and into emergency mode,” said Margaret Klein Salamon, a former psychologist who now heads the advocacy group The Climate Mobilization. “What is possible politically is fundamentally different when lots of people get into emergency mode – when they fundamentally accept that there’s danger, and that if we want to be safe we need to do everything we can. And it’s been interesting to see that theory validated by the response to the coronavirus. Now the challenge is to keep emergency mode activated about climate, where the dangers are orders of magnitude greater. We can’t think we’re going to go ‘back to normal’, because things weren’t normal.” Salamon believes that one lesson of the coronavirus crisis is the power of shared emotion, which has helped make possible radical action to slow the pandemic. “I’m not talking about people giving each other medical expertise. I’m talking about people calling each other up and saying: ‘How are you doing? Are you scared? I’m scared. I want you to be OK, I want us to be OK.’ And that’s what we want for climate, too. We need to learn to be scared together, to agree on what we’re terrified about. It’s good that we’re entering emergency mode about the pandemic,” she said.
“The political outcome of the epidemic,” said Mike Davis, “will, like all political outcomes, be decided by struggle, by battles over interpretation, by pointing out what causes problems and what solves them. And we need to get that analysis out in the world any way we can.”
Rebecca Solnit, author of “A Paradise Built in Hell”, a study of disaters, said she was taking heart from all the new ways people were finding to connect and help each other around the world, ranging from the neighbourhood delivery networks that had sprung up to bring groceries to people who couldn’t get out, to more symbolic interventions, such as kids playing music on an older neighbour’s porch.
The Italian political scientist Alessandro Delfanti said he was finding hope from a post-outbreak wave of strikes roiling Amazon warehouses in the US and Europe, and also the steps that workers across different sectors of the Italian economy were taking to help each other secure equipment they needed to stay safe.
The world feels strange right now because –it is changing so fast and any one of us could fall ill at any time, or could already be carrying the virus and not know it. It feels strange because the past few weeks have exposed the fact that one of the biggest things which can change is ourselves.
The pandemic reveals that people are not selfish and self-centred but possess the capacity to share and act in solidarity with one another, even in the midst of a disaster.
Adapted from here
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/how-will-the-world-emerge-from-the-coronavirus-crisis
Socialist Standard No. 1388 April 2020
Editorial: Capitalism struggles to cope
Pathfinders: Under Siege
The trade in footballers
Coronavirus: The Italian experience
Market Panic : Capitalist Hysteria
Cooking the Books I: Capitalism catches a cold
Wood for the Trees: A ‘Man of his Time’
Material World: Proxy warring in Syria
Arbroath 1320-1820: A History of Them and US
Irish Capitalism: Who Cares Who Runs it
Inequality: Labour’s Straw Men
Socialism, Communism, Association—A rose by another name
Transport : Future Travel
Plastic: Container Crisis
Cooking the Books II: Iron asteroids and golden meteorites
Proper Gander
Reviews
Atheism: Transcending superstition
50 Years Ago: French “Communists” support wages system
Letter: A good question
Rear View
Free Lunch
Pathfinders: Under Siege
The trade in footballers
Coronavirus: The Italian experience
Market Panic : Capitalist Hysteria
Cooking the Books I: Capitalism catches a cold
Wood for the Trees: A ‘Man of his Time’
Material World: Proxy warring in Syria
Arbroath 1320-1820: A History of Them and US
Irish Capitalism: Who Cares Who Runs it
Inequality: Labour’s Straw Men
Socialism, Communism, Association—A rose by another name
Transport : Future Travel
Plastic: Container Crisis
Cooking the Books II: Iron asteroids and golden meteorites
Proper Gander
Reviews
Atheism: Transcending superstition
50 Years Ago: French “Communists” support wages system
Letter: A good question
Rear View
Free Lunch
Re-Imagining Society
In 2009, Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization stated in, “All countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans and must remain on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia.”
In the richest country on the face of the earth, doctors and nurses have no guarantees about having enough two dollar masks or other personal protective equipment (PPE) when they care for patients. The inadequate supply of PPE has already killed patients and providers. It is shameful. Covid19 provide ample reasons for anger—towards the healthcare corporations and the media purposefully oblivious to exploitation. As usual in times of crisis, those most affected are generally those with the least economic resources. Millions of employees worldwide have been left without work given the widespread cessation of all kinds of activities, except the essential ones. As a result, those workers who depend exclusively on their wages and savings are unable to meet their needs and those of their families. Some governments have promised financial aid to those most in need but that aid is insufficient or it will take time to arrive, making it less effective. What workers need right now is not good-will, but will-power.
We’re living in a different world now. Schools, workplaces, and restaurants are shut down, adding to that already desperate situation of workers living pay-check to pay-check. The COVID-19 pandemic exposes the huge cracks in capitalist society. The longer the coronavirus emergency goes on, however, the clearer it is that people require to start rethinking our whole society. Is a “return to normalcy” possible when we may never see normal again. It is time for a revolution in our politics, pushing the idea of a more sane, more humane type of system. Squeezing a few concessions from the government is hardly revolutionary and no amount hyping it up as a revolution will make it one. We need to back radical change in the fundamentals of this economic system. The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to major changes in people’s behaviour. It will also bring a new way of thinking. The majority of people are acting with a great sense of responsibility and expressing a great amount of generosity, offer their assistance at the risk of their lives. The pandemic, economic collapse will define the future. What we need to do is to develop solidarity and reciprocity between people around the world, to cooperate and collaborate and to provide mutual aid. To create change, people must demand it. Technology allows us to educate and organise online. People are showing they can be innovative to get our message across to our brothers and sisters. COVID-19 has shown that essential workers are among the lowest-paid workers and that it is they who make our society function. Understanding this gives a new understanding of the power of the people. We are all connected and share a common humanity. If we act in solidarity during this time of crisis we can create the future we want to see for ourselves. We are all in this together.
Food Nationalism
Some countries are hoarding food items to ensure supplies for their population as the virus crisis deepens. The export curbs could prove especially harmful for poorer nations that survive on imports.
The export curbs take place against the backdrop of panic buying that has left supermarkets with aisles of empty shelves. The scarcity is not due to a shortage of supplies but to logistical hurdles created by measures to contain the pandemic.
Experts fear restrictions on the exports of wheat and wheat flour could lead to higher prices of essential items such as bread, proving lethal for many of the poorer countries in Africa that rely on imported food. High bread prices are known to have sparked riots and caused political instability, especially in Africa.
“Since most poor countries, many of them in Sub-Saharan Africa, are net food importers, sudden price hikes will almost inevitably raise poverty and hunger, because these countries have very limited capacities to respond to shortages and price rises e.g. by drawing down buffer stocks,” Rainer Thiele of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy told DW.
Russia
The world’s biggest wheat exporter wants to limit grain exports to protect domestic supplies as the fast spreading coronavirus pandemic disrupts supply chains globally. The Russian Agriculture Ministry has proposed to limit the exports of some grains, including wheat, to 7 million tons for April-June.
Ukraine
In Russia’s neighbor, Ukraine, a major exporter of grain and vegetable oils, the government is monitoring wheat exports daily and has said it would take appropriate measures, if required. The government in Kyiv has been facing demands from bakers and millers to curb grain exports and prevent bread prices from soaring if the coronavirus crisis worsens.
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan has banned exports of wheat flour, buckwheat, sugar, sunflower oil and some vegetables, including carrots and potatoes, until at least April 15 as it seeks to build stockpiles to deal with the coronavirus emergency. The Central Asian country, one of the world’s biggest exporters of wheat flour, is a crucial supplier to nations such as Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The ban on wheat flour could affect bread companies around the world.
Vietnam
The Southeast Asian country, which has so far succeeded in limiting the spread of the coronavirus, last week temporarily suspended new rice export contracts. The world’s third-largest rice exporter said it was ascertaining if it had sufficient domestic supplies to cope with the pandemic. The Philippines, China and countries in Africa are among the biggest buyers of Vietnam’s rice.
Serbia
The East European country has banned the export of sunflower oil and other goods as a precautionary move.
COVID-19 Will Widen the Racial Divide
In biological terms, pandemics are a leveller, attacking prince, prime minister and pauper without favour. In economic terms, they are much more hierarchical.
In the United States COVID-19 is likely to widen the country’s alarming racial wealth and income gap. Black Americans are on average much poorer than whites, a divide that has widened in recent years. They more commonly occupy insecure jobs at risk from the forced shutdowns, and have less financial flexibility. A Fed study found almost 30% of college-educated black households couldn’t pay all their bills if confronted with an unexpected $400 expense – a proportion that doubles where the household lacks a bachelor’s degree. People tend to believe it has got much better in the past 50 years. It hasn’t.
While the wealth gap is large, it’s income that counts most during a public health crisis. White households make roughly double the income of black households, a reality that hasn’t improved since 1962.
That’s aside from the direct health risk. The same people often do jobs that cannot be performed from home and pose serious risk of infection such as retail, home help and nursing, according to the Center for American Progress. Moreover, if they get sick, the 16 states that are home to 65% of black Americans rank well below average on healthcare access, according to consultancy McKinsey. Death rates among African Americans are already higher than average for heart disease, asthma, cancer and pneumonia.
Covid-19 could therefore leave black Americans a disproportionate legacy of death as well as financial disarray.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-breakingviews/breakingviews-racial-wealth-gap-weakens-u-s-virus-defenses-idUSKBN21H384
In the United States COVID-19 is likely to widen the country’s alarming racial wealth and income gap. Black Americans are on average much poorer than whites, a divide that has widened in recent years. They more commonly occupy insecure jobs at risk from the forced shutdowns, and have less financial flexibility. A Fed study found almost 30% of college-educated black households couldn’t pay all their bills if confronted with an unexpected $400 expense – a proportion that doubles where the household lacks a bachelor’s degree. People tend to believe it has got much better in the past 50 years. It hasn’t.
While the wealth gap is large, it’s income that counts most during a public health crisis. White households make roughly double the income of black households, a reality that hasn’t improved since 1962.
That’s aside from the direct health risk. The same people often do jobs that cannot be performed from home and pose serious risk of infection such as retail, home help and nursing, according to the Center for American Progress. Moreover, if they get sick, the 16 states that are home to 65% of black Americans rank well below average on healthcare access, according to consultancy McKinsey. Death rates among African Americans are already higher than average for heart disease, asthma, cancer and pneumonia.
Covid-19 could therefore leave black Americans a disproportionate legacy of death as well as financial disarray.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-breakingviews/breakingviews-racial-wealth-gap-weakens-u-s-virus-defenses-idUSKBN21H384
America’s Farm Workers and COVID-19
America’s farmworkers have always done the essential work of feeding the nation for little reward and with few codified protections or benefits. Researchers and advocates estimate between 60% and 75% of California’s more than 400,000 agricultural workers are undocumented. The United Farm Workers of America estimates only about 10,000 are unionized. An additional 20,000 are in California on H2A visas, a visa category that has seen some processing delays amid coronavirus shutdown orders. With the more farming-intensive spring season about to set in, and a surge in Covid-19 cases expected state-wide, there’s a small and rapidly closing window to establish meaningful safety measures in the fields.
In California, which grows two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts and one-third of its vegetables, the pressure to shift and bolster that fast-changing food system is felt acutely. The state’s roughly 400,000 agricultural workers are exempt from shelter-in-place orders, and vital agriculture work is continuing to keep markets stocked nationwide. Growers and labor contractors say they are putting new practices and measures in place to keep workers socially distanced and maintain sanitized common facilities.
But workers and their advocates tell a different story: of vulnerable, low-wage workers operating in fear, without proper protections let alone information about the risks involved in their essential labor, and without hope of any share in expanded unemployment benefits should they fall ill or lose work.
“Nothing has changed at work,” Amadeo Sumano said . “The distance principle, 6 feet between people, does not work in agriculture.” He worries about getting sick, or having his hours cut as some growers contend with a loss in food service orders, and the financial pressure that would come with either scenario, made even more intense because of his undocumented status. “I have lived and worked in this country for many years and paid taxes, but cannot access benefits,” said Sumano. “If either working hours are cut or we contract the virus, we are likely to not be able to pay rent and would become homeless.”
Armando Elenes, secretary-treasurer of the United Farm Workers of America. “The last hands that touched that produce before the consumer puts it in their mouth is a farmworker’s hands, so we better care about what happens to these workers.” He laughed at the notion of growers voluntarily offering hazard pay to compensate for their new risks, as some front line workers in other sectors have demanded. “The ‘essential’ part doesn’t show up on their paycheck. They’re lucky to get minimum wage,” he said.
“They’re getting paid the same, yet they’re exposing themselves to more dangers,” said Irene de Barraicua, spokesperson for Lideres Campesinas, an advocacy organization of and for California female farmworkers. “There is no standard for safety orientation. Sometimes we’re hearing they just get a five-minute talk – stay six feet apart, don’t do this, don’t do that – but they’re working in big crowds. It feels like it’s not being taken seriously because the money is more important.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/us-coronavirus-outbreak-california-farm-workers
The Workers Kick Back
More than 100 Amazon workers walked out of a New York City facility on Monday, going on strike and demanding increased protective gear and hazard pay as they work through the coronavirus pandemic.
“Since the building won’t close by itself, we’re going to have to force their hand,” Chris Smalls, lead organizer of the Staten Island strike, told CNBC. He added that workers “will not return until the building gets sanitized”.
Small alleged that Amazon employees have been exposed to multiple people who have been found to have Covid-19. Employees at the New York facility accuse Amazon of poor communication about worker health. Small himself is in quarantine after coming in contact with an infected co-worker.
The management assistant alleges only “a select few of the general managers” and a handful of colleagues in close proximity were informed about the diagnosis. Another anonymous worker told CNBC gloves were being rationed.
The strikers demanded the company close down the large warehouse for thorough cleaning after reports of multiple employees testing positive for the coronavirus. Workers had already tested positive for the coronavirus at 11 warehouses. One warehouse in Kentucky was forced to close temporarily.
Delivery workers for Instacart, a national delivery service also went on strike across the country on Monday, demanding disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer and better pay to offset risks faced in bringing groceries to Americans confined to their homes.
Instacart announced concessions to its delivery workers including new health and safety supplies and automatic tipping. In a Medium post, Instacart workers and the Gig Workers Collective said the company’s response was “insulting for a number of reasons”.
“We are heartened by the outpouring of support we’ve received from Instacart customers, politicians, activists and everyday folks worried that they could be exposed to the virus due to Instacart’s craven profit-seeking,” the workers wrote. “It goes to show that corporate greed is an issue that impacts us all, whether one is a shopper directly being affected, or not.”
Some Whole Foods workers are also expected to strike
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/30/amazon-workers-strike-coronavirus
The Peoples Wake-Up Call
The COVID-19 pandemic focuses attention on the disastrous deficiencies of the profit system. For far too long, we have ignored the failures of a system that reduces ever more people to homelessness, refugee camps, permanent indebtedness, and servitude. It is an economic system which directly imperils our survival and well-being. It is system devoted to generating profits for the richest. It values things only for its market price. It promotes maximising personal financial returns as the highest moral obligation to society. It wantonly destroys the stability of its climate and the purity of its air, water, and soil. Military expenditures and preparations for wars represents wasted resources that would be better applied to addressing the deficiencies in our healthcare.
Rich people are far more likely to survive Coronavirus than poor people. Wealthy people the world over are more likely to have access to testing, treatment, good doctors, ventilators, etc. Poor people all over the planet are more likely to try to “tough it out” at home because they don’t have a doctor or can’t afford one. A humane society doesn’t trade some lives for others. It is, perhaps, possible within capitalism to put a dollar sign on every death as part of a cost-benefit analysis. But a humane society doesn’t frame addressing the public’s health and the health of the economy as a “trade-off.” There’s never an excuse to send people to work in dangerous conditions with no safety nets and benefits. It’s especially horrendous in the midst of coronavirus.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been made worse and continues to be made worse by nationalism, ironic considering the virus doesn’t care about borders. This pandemic shows us it’s time to evolve past the idea of the nation-state. It has shown us not just the flaws in the capitalist system, but it has also demonstrated for all to see our shared humanity. We must join together. What if we decided there were no nations but instead the working people of the world were one. Coronavirus has made so clear that global issues can’t be easily categorized as just a health issue. It has encompass our economy and encompassed our entire social system and ways of life. Covid-19 has shined a spotlight on the ways that our society is not working, particularly not working for people in vulnerable groups.
Capitalism is a self-destructive system that no longer can support our long-term future. When the pandemic dissipates business as usual is simply not an option. Once the global turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic has eventually subsided (as it certainly will in due course), our biggest and most important challenge will be if we have learned from the experience to re-shape our future. It has awaken to the stark reality of the profound failure of our existing institutions. But it has also awaken to the truth of other possibilities and our interconnections with one another and with our planet. We must now learn to devote ourselves to the well-being of all in an interdependent world. The coronavirus pandemic has been a powerful reminder that a society committed to the common good is essential. Let us move forward to create a better world for all. Let us free our minds. World socialism is all about you and me, and our neighbours, and our friends and co-workers, and our shared humanity. The antidote to COVID-19 is to build a solidarity-based economy with one another. A real sharing economy could emerge at the other end of the coronavirus crisis.
Quote of the Day
“Prepare for a steady stream of anti-Chinese rhetoric coming from government politicians as they try to deflect from any criticism of their own handling of the crisis.” – Nick Lowles, the head of the Hope not Hate anti-racism group.
Protect the already vulnerable
Hundreds of thousands of disabled and chronically ill people face poverty after being left out of emergency measures to bolster the benefits system to help claimants cope with the coronavirus crisis, 100 disability charities have warned.
The Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) said in an open letter that changes introduced last week to raise the weekly rate of universal credit by £20 would not apply to those on legacy benefits.
Ella Abraham, the DBC’s campaigns co-chair, said: “These are unprecedented and extremely worrying times for so many people, across all of our organisations we are seeing the detrimental impact this is having on disabled and unwell people’s physical and mental health.
Many claimants will not receive the increase, worth more than £1,000 a year, because they receive employment and support allowance (ESA), a disability unemployment benefit that pre-dates universal credit.
The DBC warns that disabled people claiming tax credits who lose their jobs over the next few months will be worse off because they will not qualify for income protections promised when universal credit was introduced.
Transitional protection is a temporary top-up payment added to universal credit to offset any benefit losses when claimants are transferred from tax credits – but it is not payable when claimants move because of a change of circumstances, such as job loss.
“Disabled people in work and parents of disabled children stand to lose far more than most people if they lose transitional protection – sometimes amounting to thousands of pounds a year. This will make it even more difficult for them to recover from the economic shock of the next few months,” the letter says.
The charities have called for measures to protect vulnerable claimants from sudden falls in income, including a definitive commitment from ministers not to apply benefit sanctions, and a repayment holiday on advance loans from the Department for Work and Pensions to see new claimants through the five-week wait for a first universal credit payment. It also calls on ministers to protect the incomes of disabled people whose benefits are automatically reduced or suspended when they start an appeal against a benefit decision. About 90,000 people are currently awaiting an appeal.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/30/benefit-changes-leave-disabled-people-facing-poverty-uk-charities-warn-coronavirus