Making sense out of the madness: A socialist response
6,649 dead, 173,293 affected by the Coronavirus (Covid-1) as of this writing. Global markets are tanking as reported by the Guardian. While the numbers do not compare to those who die annually, 9 million, 24,000 daily, of hunger. Covid-19, especially in America, is being addressed from a capitalist standpoint, money, and not a humane one. Especially when President Donald J. Trump constantly lies to the American public. This epidemic is hitting hard at our social fabric. Which is good from time to time.
The Trump administration’s botched Coronavirus response has hurt the average citizen, making them more vulnerable to the virus. Trump’s Covid-19 response has been a disaster year in the making. Lisa Lera says, “we’ve gotten a preview of our new politics. Last night, the country watched President Trump deliver a monotone Oval Office address, only to have various administration officials quickly step in to correct several policies that he had announced.” Americans have grown accustomed to political chaos under the Trump administration. Trump’s main focus in his televised addresses was to speak of how money and stabilizing the market for his Covid-19 response. Really no talk at all about the human side of this epidemic in the USA. Trump is ill-prepared to handle a national crisis such as this. The Atlantic has this dismal review of Trump, “ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been.”
“All of this underscores just how unprepared this administration is to deal with a national crisis,” says a recent The Hill article. The Guardian says, “Bolton, like Trump, did not see it as a real national security issue, like China or Iran. … Governor Andrew Cuomo criticized the federal response to the crisis.”
Monthly Review’s March issue states, “Capitalism, with its history of alienation, exploitation, racism, patriarchy, and homophobia, along with its attempted commodification of everything in existence, has long robbed tens of millions of people in the United States of their mental (as well as physical) well-being.” Monthly Review goes on to state:
As economist Angus Deaton of Princeton University-winner of the Bank of Sweden’s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel and author, together with Anne Case, of Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2020)-stated in May 2019,
Capitalism is not delivering to large fractions of the population; in the US, where the inequalities are clearest, real wages for men without a four-year college degree have fallen for half a century, even at a time when per capita GDP has robustly risen. Mortality rates are rising for the less-educated group at ages 25 through 64, and by enough that life expectancy for the entire population has fallen for three years in a row, the first time such a reversal has happened since the end of the first world war and the great influenza epidemic. Less educated [working-class] Americans are dying by their own hands, from suicide, from alcoholic liver disease, and from overdoses of drugs. Morbidity is rising too, and they are also suffering from an epidemic of chronic pain that, for many, makes a misery of daily life….
In the face of globalization and innovation, many of us would argue that American policy, instead of cushioning working people, has instead contributed to making their lives worse, by allowing more rent-seeking, reducing the share of labor, undermining pay and working conditions, and changing the legal framework in ways that favor business over workers. Inequality has risen not only due to wealth generation from innovation or creation, but also through upward transfers from workers. It is not inequality itself that is hurting people, but the mechanisms of enrichment. (Angus Deaton, “Inequality and the Future of Capitalism,” IFS Deaton Review, May 14, 2019)
Albert Einstein said, “socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends.” The USA pandemic crisis is unique as it is based upon a capitalist mindset. Where instead socialism is from an ethical human response. Humans know best how to help other humans. When you attack a human crisis from a capitalist mindset you get results such as this.
David Matthews in his MR report on mental health states, “Without doubt, the labor process and society’s economic foundations have tremendously negative consequences for mental health, but a theory of poor mental well-being cannot reduce mental health to a direct one-to-one reflection of economic activity.” The mental health of a nation is probably the best barometer in how well a nation is doing. Right now, America is sinking faster than the Titanic. “Money being the best barometer of social rank in the USA,” from Prescription for a Healthy Nation: A New Approach to Improving Our Lives by Tom Farley, Deborah A. Cohen. With the stock market crash caused by Trump’s recession, most Americans are seeing their 401K programs tank.
All this chaos caused by a billionaire Trump and his capitalist approach to fix the Coronavirus. Trump is more interested in his image than saving the lives of American citizens. Trump’s attempt to trivialize the Covid-19 outbreak as stated by ABC “Trump blames news media and Democrats for inflaming the novel coronavirus crisis.”
A society based on socialism, inclusive collaborative decision-making. Socialism’s economy is state-run and it lacks a stock exchange. Healthcare and education are all completely managed and administered by the government. 2019 article in Jacobin shows what socialist society could look like. One thing is for sure, in a socialist country it would beat hands down the chaos Trump’s administration has responded to Covid-19.
America faces an epic choice…
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America faces an epic choice…
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revolution!
Originally published at http://okemahfreepress.wordpress.com on March 16, 2020.
