Killer Capitalism’s COVID-19 Back-to-Work Imperative
By JEFF MACKLER and JAMES FORTIN
Over the past several weeks, daily new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S.
have remained in the 22,000–25,000 range. By June 1, it is estimated
that the number of deaths each day will rise to 3,000. Yet all 50 states
now have begun lifting socially-protective measures aimed at containing
the coronavirus, planning to “re-start” the U.S. economy – primarily by
sending workers back to work. Why is this, and what really should be done?
The foundational basis of the U.S. capitalist economy is the profitable
exploitation of human labor, without which the economy falters. To date,
an unprecedented 36 million have filed for unemployment insurance.
Nearly half of the entire U.S. workforce is without a job. In this
context, the current drive led by U.S. capitalism’s twin political
parties to send workers back to work is not only understandable, but
absolutely necessary, regardless of the cost in human lives.
Profits are in a severe free fall not seen since the Great Depression
that began in 1929. Accordingly, the back-to-work imperative being
promulgated by the ruling class and its political parties offers both an
ostensible “scientific” rationale as well as an economic bludgeon. On
the one hand, while there is virtual unanimity in the scientific
community – even in its operations under profit-first capitalism – that
any premature generalized return to work today can only lead to
increased death rates, U.S. capitalism and its counterparts around the
world are in the process of “experimenting” with formulas wherein
workers can more or less safely, they insist, return to work.
On the other hand, workers are being beaten back to work by the
termination of the government’s token and short-term relief measures,
and the soon-to-expire extension of temporarily enhanced unemployment
benefits. Old employers not hiring you back? No worries, there is always
a part-time, temporary, low-benefit job in a grocery store at a whopping
$10 or $12 an hour, with the added value of a food bank waiting line.
Tens of millions of workers, who live paycheck-to-paycheck, not to
mention the tens of millions that have been excluded from any relief,
will be expected to bend to necessity and risk their lives to survive.
Return-to-work “science” and “success formulas”
Formulas for reopening schools around the world include
often-contradictory guesstimates about whether to begin with elementary
age children, allegedly less vulnerable to COVID-19, or to start with
secondary school students. The latter are said to be more capable of
adhering to the various social distancing and protective gear
regulations being used to lessen the spread of the disease.
Here, the concern of the ruling rich is significantly more focused to
free up home-bound parents to return to the workplace than it is to the
education and safety of students (or for that matter, the health of
their parents). Needless to say, the often symptom-free youth, multiple
tests notwithstanding, will daily return home to live with parents and
other relatives who can only be subjected to further infection.
Whatever the adopted formulas, whichever charts and graphs and however
many regulations will be employed to send students back into populated
schools and workers back to workplaces, they are calculated in the
context of a deadly virus that continues to infect and kill additional
multitudes around the world, daily. These actions have a counterpoint:
the present and critically necessary social distancing and quarantines
that save lives. The so-called flattened curve or current plateau of new
infections in the U.S. represents a statistical assessment of COVID-19
at its height. The notion that a level of safety has been achieved when
their charts record 14 consecutive days where there is no increase in
the daily number of new cases is sheer demagogy.
By comparison, in China, eleven million people are being tested in
Wuhan, where the pandemic is said to have originated –the entire
population of the city – as even a handful of new cases poses the threat
of yet another major outbreak. In the U.S., in contrast, the percentage
of tested individuals is closer to three percent! And the reported
number of new cases every day stands close 23,000. Recent data from
major Latin American cities, previously thought to be relatively free
from the virus, indicates that across the continent infection and death
rates parallel, if not exceed, the worst examples in the U.S. and Europe.
In New York, the state with nearly 25 percent of the nation’s deaths,
Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo alternates between cautioning against
any early re-opening of schools and businesses, to daily speculation
that a gradual if not generalized return to work is on the horizon. Ever
vacillating, Cuomo’s recent appearance with leading billionaire charter
school advocate Bill Gates, saw Gates pontificating about the great
advances in technology that might be brought to public education itself,
that is, virtual, stay-at-home education. In consequence, the sale of
hundreds of “unnecessary” city school buildings might offer a profit
bonanza to New York City’s billionaire real estate tycoons. Perhaps even
living teachers would in time be deemed unnecessary! For now, however,
Gates’ dream of technology-driven education without schools or teachers
is a mere hint of what the future holds. But disaster capitalism knows
no limits.
Disaster capitalism and the coming second wave
In the few countries where the curve of new infections has significantly
dropped no one denies that, absent an effective vaccine made available
to the entire population, anything resembling a generalized return to
work can only result in a second, if not third wave of infections and
deaths, perhaps worse than the present wave. Top scientists, from the
Trump administration’s epidemiologist expert, Anthony Fauci, and Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield, to World
Health Organization officials, attest to the fact that any premature
return to work would likely result in a second wave that could again
overwhelm any nation’s medical system to a degree that would dwarf the
horrors associated with the present wave. The ruling class response to
this obvious scenario? Yes, true enough, they state repeatedly, but we
have to get back to work. Without an effective and available vaccine,
perhaps in 12–18 months, if not several years from now, there is really
no alternative, they say, but to carefully re-open the system, and to
manage the re-opening to minimize the “inevitable risks” – that is, the
consequent and massive loss of lives.
“Management of the risks” operates with the unstated premise that the
slow and ever-progressing spread of the coronavirus would take its toll
in lives BUT would leave ever-increasing proportions of the population
with an alleged – but yet to be proven – “natural” immunity. Indeed,
this theory has been initially called into question. A May 16 Associated
Press dispatch read: “Five sailors on the U.S. aircraft carrier USS
Theodore Roosevelt were sidelined in Guam due to a COVID-19 outbreak.
The five have tested positive for the virus for the second time and have
been taken off the ship, according to the Navy.”
The AP dispatch continued: “The resurgence of the virus in the five
sailors underscores the befuddling behavior of the highly contagious
virus and raises questions about how troops that test positive [and then
recover from the disease and then test negative twice, according to the
report] can be reintegrated into the military, particularly on ships.”
Herd immunity as a virus management tool
Perhaps the most scandalous proposal to manage the virus came from Boris
Johnson, the British Prime Minister. Herd immunity in a sane scientific
world is a result of massive, society-wide vaccinations (which are
currently unavailable). The vaccination of 80 to 90% of the population
provides widespread immunities that stop the viral spread. The most
important example of this is found with immunocompromised children who
cannot be vaccinated but who can safely participate in a school
environment where everyone else is immune.
Perverting the scientific basis to this concept of herd immunity,
however, Johnson blatantly proposed that all citizens in the United
Kingdom simply return to work and let the virus take its course without
a vaccine. Eventually, in Johnson’s playbook, as more people came down
with COVID-19 and then recovered, the population as a whole, by some
future date, would develop the necessary virus antibodies. Getting to
that point of societal immunity, however, would call for massive numbers
of deaths – otherwise mitigated through quarantine and social distancing
– while waiting for sufficient societal antibodies to take hold.
Johnson’s quick fix for getting people back to work was met with
enormous public push back and that particular idea was dropped.
Johnson’s ready acceptance of a quickened and intensified death count to
manage the virus has been matched by his cohort in the White House,
President Trump. Throughout 2020 Trump has attempted to minimize the
pandemic by demonstratively refusing to wear a mask and challenging the
death and infection data presented by the scientific community. While
avoiding the brash acceptance of increased deaths to quell the pandemic
as Johnson has done, Trump tacitly follows the same line in his
aggressive push to “open the economy” by supporting right-wing, gun
toting protestors who clamor for the right to go back to work, and in
his repeated statements that, “Vaccine or no vaccine, we are back.”
Meanwhile, Tyson Corporation’s food magnates have virtually forced their
unvaccinated, largely immigrant workers, who they describe as their
“team,” to stand elbow-to-elbow, with co-workers literally vomiting on
the animal disassembly line. Stricken with COVID-19 in slaughterhouses
where over 1,000 have tested positive to date, the working conditions of
these workers vividly illustrate capitalism’s wholesale disregard of
health in favor of profit.
Trump praises Tesla’s chief’s return to work order
President Trump’s recent praise of billionaire Tesla chief Elon Musk’s
defiance of an Alameda Country order banning the re-opening of the
Fremont, California Tesla plant stands as a glaring example of a
reactionary president who publicly approved the violation of a county
health regulation aimed at protecting workers from the deadly
consequences of returning to work. Musk publicly challenged California
officials to arrest him. None did.
One can only grimace at Trump’s nod of approval to the small-scale armed
protests at the Michigan statehouse, or for the threatening AK-47-armed
thugs at a Texas tattoo parlor, where a handful defied state closure
orders in the name of defending civil liberties. This is the same Trump
who declared that “There were good people on both sides” when armed
fascists in Charlottesville attacked peaceful demonstrators.
Trump’s atrocities were compounded when “liberal” California Governor
Gavin Newsom declined to intervene at the Tesla plant on the grounds
that enforcement of the state’s ban on returning to work was to be left
to local county administrations. “Liberal” Alameda County, with the
highest Democratic Party registration rate in the state – 90 percent –
sent a handful of Fremont police to monitor Musk’s compliance with the
county’s health and safety regulations. Newsom, as well as all previous
Democratic Party majority legislatures, had previously gutted Cal-OSHA
(California Occupational Safety and Health Administration), which
refused to set foot on Tesla’s Fremont property. Today, Cal-OSHA has
less than 200 inspectors plus one doctor and one nurse to monitor the
working conditions of 18 million California workers. The result?
Multi-billionaire Musk – whose worldwide Tesla non-union operations,
including in China, exceed the combined wealth of the present U.S. Big
Three automakers, Ford, General Motors and Fiat-Chrysler – got off scot
free, with a handful of cops supposedly deployed to monitor its massive
assembly lines.
Science under capitalism
Today, the Trump administration has assigned two figures to lead the
government’s “Warp Speed” drive to find an effective vaccine for the
coronavirus. GlaxoSmithKline’s former chair of vaccines, now venture
capitalist, Moncef Slaoui, will lead the scientific aspect of the
project, along with four star General Gustave F. Perna, who will serve
as the project’s chief operating officer, preparing in advance for the
manufacture and distribution of a hoped-for vaccine that is proven to be
safe and effective. Slaoui served as chair of the board of the Moderna
pharmaceutical giant.
While it appears from Trump’s belated announcement of Operation Warp
Speed that this government-led project, perhaps the first of its kind in
this field, will consult and collaborate with all private corporations
in the endeavor to avoid wasteful duplication of efforts, it remains to
be seen if the search will be based on a collective effort as opposed to
the usual secretive research and development projects where profits and
patents go to the victor. In the same vein, while the Trump
administration and other major capitalist nations with the necessary
resources to find a vaccine have indicated their willingness to share
such a discovery with all nations, to date there have been few
indications that the research process itself will be an internationally
coordinated and collective effort, as opposed to being conducted in the
traditional competitive capitalist profit-first mode.
Trump’s Warp Speed vaccine pursuit exposed
Trump’s insistence that his Warp Speed vaccine project had been on the
mark early on was contradicted by Rick Bright, the Trump-fired
whistle-blower director of the government’s Biomedical Advanced Research
and Development Authority (BARDA). “If we fail to develop a nationally
coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far
worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities,”
Bright told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on
April 26. Bright continued in his testimony, “Time is running out. The
window is closing to address the pandemic because we still do not have a
standard, centralized, coordinated plan to take our nation through this
response.”
Bright’s stunning remarks, almost immediately characterized by Trump as
emanating from “nothing more than a really disgruntled, unhappy person,”
stood in sharp contrast to Trump’s deceitful assertions that his
administration had been on top of the COVID-19 pandemic from the
beginning. “Our window of opportunity is closing,” Bright warned again.
“The undeniable fact is there will be a resurgence of the COVID-19 this
fall, greatly compounding the challenges of seasonal influenza and
putting an unprecedented strain on our health care system…Without clear
planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have
outlined, 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history.”
Closing hospitals during a pandemic
The ongoing economic meltdown now occurring during the pandemic has
exposed multiple contradictions in the economic system, pointing to the
irrationality of capitalism itself and the need for socialist solutions.
Working people in the U.S. continue to lose tens of millions of jobs,
and with those lost jobs comes the further loss of health insurance tied
to their employment.
The spectacle of impending massive hospital closures at a time when the
need for expanded medical facilities are on the order of the day will
shock more than a few. The American Hospital Association (AHA) reported
that hospitals are losing an estimated $50 billion a month. 134,000
hospital employees were among the estimated 1.4 million health care
workers who lost their jobs last month, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. Hospitals reported seeing between 40 and 70 percent fewer
patients from late March through early May, many of them scheduled for
profitable services like orthopedic surgery and radiological scans.
These services, operating in the context of today’s largely privatized
medical institutions inexorably tied to giant insurance company
conglomerates, provide services that include knee replacements at
$175,000 each and multiple leg fracture repair at $220,000!
The decline in revenue is expected to be especially high among hospitals
that have commanded these high prices from private health plans, like
the Mayo Clinic. Sixty percent of the Mayo Clinic’s $11.6 billion annual
patient revenue came from privately insured patients. Just three percent
was derived from those on Medicaid, the system of national health
insurance for those requiring financial assistance. The rest came from
patients who were either were covered by Medicare or paid their own costs.
In short, at a time when low-cost universal healthcare, a virtual norm
with regard to the healthcare systems of most advanced capitalist
nations, is desperately needed, the very nature of the profit system may
press less profitable hospitals to close down due to profit losses,
according to the AHA, and to terminate jobs of countless workers in the
industry. Well aware of the financial dilemma facing this profit-first
and increasingly monopolized industry, the government’s initial $2.2
trillion bailout package included generous billions to the
profit-gouging corporate hospital elite.
Destroying food as the unemployed seek food banks
As the 1% exposes its focus on profits rather than health, we observe
the irrational closure of hospitals in the face of a pandemic and
increased need for health services. Similarly, as the ruling class
allows the unemployed to go hungry because it is not profitable to feed
them, our society must watch the mind-numbing juxtaposition of willful
destruction of livestock and milk dumping together with blocks-long food
bank waiting lines.
The U.S. produces massive food surpluses, more than enough to feed the
entire population. Yet, working America is increasingly characterized by
food insecurity. Even before the influx of millions of newly unemployed
people, one of five working adults and one in three children existed in
this tragic food-deprived state.
Rather than destroy food or cease “unprofitable” food production,
supermarkets can and should be opened with food free to all. Rather than
close “unprofitable” hospitals, free, quality healthcare can be provided
for all as well, and hospitals previously closed should be reopened for
public benefit. And rather than tolerate a pharmaceutical establishment
that shuns open, collective, and coordinated work in favor of secret
operations to be first to patent and monopolize production of vaccines
for profit, we should nationalize the pharmaceutical industry to the
benefit of all humanity.
The urgency and rationality of socialist solutions
In all these matters, simple socialist solutions, like free health care
for all, free food for the hungry among us, and free guaranteed housing
for the economically displaced through no fault of their own, are within
the technological and financial reach of present-day society. But they
are denied to the majority by the twin parties of capitalism. Instead,
the Democrats and Republicans offer no solutions other than more of the
same – massive tax cuts for the rich, ongoing transfer of wealth to the
top 1%, unending war spending of dollars that could be used to save
lives, instead of extinguishing them. Indeed, the entire electoral
season has been largely eclipsed by a crisis for which both capitalist
parties are joined at the hip in allocating unprecedented waves of
trillions of dollars largely to capitalism’s corporate elite. The ruling
class is exclusively responsible for the horrors facing untold millions
of workers who had been pushed to the edge before the COVID-19 pandemic
and now whose lives are increasingly in free fall. What socialism offers
is the rational alternative.
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Steven Pinker
“It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer.
But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming
naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's
highest callings.
[Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005]”
― Steven Pinker