Capitalism

Mass Unemployment Is A Failure Of Capitalism

May 12, 2020 Richard D. Wolff, Popular Resistance. Educate! Capitalism, Unemployment, Worker Rights and Jobs, Working Class

The difficulties caused to workers by record unemployment during the pandemic are a product of capitalism. Most of the time, employers decide to hire or fire workers depending on which choice maximizes employers’ profits. Profit, not the full employment of workers nor of means of production, is “the bottom line” of capitalism and thus of capitalists. That is how the system works. Capitalists are rewarded when their profits are high and punished when they are not. It’s nothing personal; it’s just business. Unemployment is a choice mostly made by employers. In many cases of unemployment, employers had the option not to fire employees. They could have kept all employed but reduced their hours or days or else rotated off-work times among employees. Employers can choose to retain idled employees on payrolls and suffer losses they hope will be temporary.

Scheer Intelligence: Does Medicare For All Await Us At The End Of This Viral Massacre?

May 8, 2020 Robert Scheer, Popular Resistance. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Medicare for all, Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed a number of fatal flaws in the ways the United States operates that all link back to capitalism. Perhaps the most egregious, however, is the country’s inhumane health care system. Given the global spread of Covid-19, it has been possible to witness in real time how other countries have fared against the deadly virus, and for anyone paying attention to health care systems, it has been clear from the onset that the American system, which boasts the highest costs in the world, was going to lead to mass death on a scale unseen in other nations. The combination of obscene health insurance costs, as well as deductibles and copays, and the fact that it is often tied to employment--a problem exacerbated by the rapid rise in unemployment linked to lockdowns across the U.S.--has left many Americans without recourse amid a pandemic in which the overall health of the nation has been determined by those who can’t access health care.

Post-Pandemic America: Prelude To Socialism Or Fascism?

May 8, 2020 Werner Lange, Hampton Think. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Pandemic, Socialism

May 8 marks the 75th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in Europe, a historic victory over modern despotism that catapulted American capitalism to world domination by default. As the only combatant country with its cities and infrastructure left intact, the United States emerged from this colossal bloodbath as the single most potent economy on earth. Europe, especially Germany, lay in utter ruins and tens of millions, half of them civilians, lay in early graves. By contrast, the US economy flourished adding some 11 million jobs within the seven years following the war; the minimum wage increased; the poverty rate fell; farm incomes, dividends and corporate profits hit all-time highs; and bank failures along with unemployment had all but disappeared. American capitalism entered a Golden Age.

Coronavirus Decade: Post-Capitalist Nightmare Or Socialist Awakening?

May 6, 2020 Neil Vallelly, ROAR Magazine. Create! Capitalism, COVID-19, Global Recession, Socialism

The defining event of the 2020s has been established in its first few months. This will surely be the coronavirus decade, unless something much worse is heading our way, which is not out of the question. An epistemic break has occurred, a rupture in the seemingly entrenched mechanisms of neoliberalism. It is no surprise that Lenin’s quote about decades and weeks seems to adorn every other article. Suddenly, unrepentant free-marketers have been usurped by government interventionists, the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps brigade drowned out by welfare statists, the we’ve-had-enough-of-experts dogmatists transformed into epidemiologists and public health professionals. The principle of utility has been completely altered overnight.

The Black Death Killed Feudalism. What Does COVID-19 Mean For Capitalism?

May 4, 2020 By John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus Educate! Black Plague, Capitalism, COVID-19, Feudalism, Finance, Food and Agriculture, Oil

You pay little attention to the systems of your body — circulatory, digestive, pulmonary — unless something goes wrong. These automatic systems ordinarily go about their business, like unseen clockwork, while you think about a vexing problem at work, drink your morning cup of coffee, walk up and downstairs, and head out to your car to begin your morning commute. If you had to focus your attention on breathing, pushing blood through your veins, and metabolizing food, you’d have no time or energy to do anything else. The body abhors the micromanaging of the mind. The same applies to the world’s markets. They whir away in the background of your life, providing loans to your business, coffee beans to your nearby supermarket, labor to build your house, gas to fill your car.

Fighting COVID-19 With Mass Action And A People’s Strike

May 3, 2020 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Capitalism, General Strike, May Day, People's Strike

The passionate debates surrounding the response to the COVID-19 pandemic are useless if they don’t lead to a larger fight against capitalism. The shut downs of business and schools intended to stop the spread of corona virus have created 22 million newly unemployed people. That means those workers have lost their health care. They may not be able to pay rent or mortgages or buy food. All efforts must be directed towards addressing their needs and working towards transformational change. COVID-19 has exposed the fraudulence of American democracy. The neo-liberal austerity regime even targets unemployment benefits , the one program which is thought of as being untouched by the relentless race to the bottom. There is no right to housing or health care or work place safety in this country and millions of people are suffering. The safety net is thread bare.

Scheer Intelligence: Coronavirus Proves Capitalism Has Always Been A Lie

May 1, 2020 Robert Scheer, Scheer Post. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Global Recession, Pandemic, Podcast

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to cause mass death and upheaval around the world, there has been an unexpected side effect: it has unmasked capitalism. In the U.S., this unmasking can be seen in both the Federal Reserve’s actions as well as Congress’ coronavirus aid legislation, the CARES Act, both of which reveal critical truths about an economic system that has been sold to working people as one thing and as quite another to banks and corporations. To shed some much needed light on the intricacies of our financial situation during the latest crisis, “Scheer Intelligence” host Robert Scheer spoke with acclaimed economist and attorney Ellen Brown. There are plenty of parallels to be drawn between the last financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, with the clear exception being that now we’re not just dealing with a broken economy but with a deadly virus.

Five Proposals For A Better World After The Pandemic

April 29, 2020 Climate and Capitalism. Create! Capitalism, Global Recession, New Economy, Pandemic

Covid-19 has shaken the world. It has already led to the loss or devastation of countless lives, while many people in vital professions are working day and night to attend to the sick and stop further spread. Personal and social losses, and the fight to stop these, demand our continued respect and support. At the same time, it is critical to view this pandemic in historical context in order to avoid repeating past mistakes when we plan for the future. The fact that Covid-19 has already had such a major economic impact is due, amongst other factors, to the economic development model that has been dominant globally over the last 30 years. This model demands ever-growing circulation of goods and people, despite the countless ecological problems and growing inequalities it generates.

Diseased System In Shut-Lockdown

April 26, 2020 Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Austerity, Capitalism, Pandemic, Recession, Socialism

If growing misery among the masses is what made revolutions, the Lords of Capital would have been deposed from their ruling perches long ago. But human beings do not spend their lives tallying cumulative assaults on their well being and dignity, and ruling classes are expert at blaming despised Others, foreign and domestic, for the ills of society. History shows us that economic crises do not become political crises that seriously threaten the ruling order until a critical mass of people come to the realization that the system itself is rotten, unbearable and incapable of meaningful reform. They must not only hate the rulers, but also hate the rulers’ system of governance more than they despise domestic Others and “threatening” foreigners.

Capitalism Can’t Be Repaired

April 26, 2020 Richard D. Wolff, Brave New Europe. Educate! Capitalism, Pandemic, Recession, Socialism

Consider this absurdity: The U.S. government’s policy in the face of the current capitalist crash is to “return the economy to the pre-coronavirus normal.” What? In that “normal” system, private capitalists maximized profits by not producing the tests, masks, ventilators, beds, etc., needed when coronavirus hit. Profit-driven capitalism proved extremely inefficient in its response to the virus. Wealth already lost from the coronavirus far exceeds what it would have cost to prepare properly. In capitalism, a small minority—employers—makes all the key decisions (what, how, where to produce and how to use the proceeds) governing production and distribution of most goods and services. The majority—employees and their families—must live with the results of employers’ decisions but are excluded from making them.

The Pandemic And The Global Economy

April 24, 2020 Jayati Ghosh, Dissent Magazine. Educate! Capitalism, Global Recession, Globalization, Pandemic

There are still many uncertainties about the COVID-19 pandemic: about the extent of its spread, its severity in different countries, the length of the outbreak, and whether an initial decline could be followed by a recurrence. But some things are already certain: we know that the economic impact of this pandemic is already immense, dwarfing anything that we have experienced in living memory. The current shock to the global economy is certainly much bigger than that of the 2008 global financial crisis, and is likely to be more severe than the Great Depression. Even the two world wars of the twentieth century, while they disrupted supply chains and devastated physical infrastructure and populations, did not involve the restrictions on mobility and economic activity that are in place in the majority of countries today.

Coronavirus And The Crisis Of African American Human Rights

April 24, 2020 Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Black Working Class, Capitalism, health, Human Rights, Recession

With the overwhelming evidence that the capitalist system is fundamentally antithetical to the realization of human rights, including what should be an elementary right — access to healthcare — the presidency of Donald J. Trump has been a godsend for the capitalist rulers. The obsessive focus on Trump the person, his style, his theatrics, the idea that he represents an aberration, an existential threat, allows for the ongoing structural violence embedded in the DNA of racialized capitalism to hide in plain sight. But for the Black working class and poor it is suicidal to embrace this illusion. Maintaining a clear understanding of our situation, unimpeded by illusions and ideological mystifications, has always been a tool we used to ensure our survival before the ideological swing to the right over the last decade and a half.

Starving Cities And States

April 23, 2020 Eve Ottenberg, Counterpunch. Educate! Austerity, Capitalism, COVID-19, Shock Doctrine

Disaster capitalism is in high gear. The stock market plunged, so Trump, hysterical, whipped out the federal checkbook. The result? Unlimited bailouts of shoddily-run corporations, criminally managed banks and other assorted oligarchs with their hands out. But hey, it got the stock market soaring, because now investors know Washington will rescue them, whatever idiocies they commit. Everybody else is on their own. After they cash that one-time stimulus check, they get to join the rest of the unemployed in the line at the food bank. Meanwhile the lifeline for the 22 million people who have lost their jobs is their unemployment check. For that they turn to their state. And guess what? The Covid-19-caused economic shutdown is bankrupting the states.

Rebellion Against Coronavirus Lockdown

April 23, 2020 William I. Robinson, L. A. Progressive. Educate! Capitalism, Right-Wing, Tea Party, Trump

The nation (and world)-wide lockdown in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic has paralyzed much of the capitalist economy and therefore nearly ground to a halt the process of capital accumulation (profit making). That this economic paralysis throws tens of millions of workers into crises of survival is entirely incidental to the concern of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) to immediately resume profit-making, as capital cannot remain idle without ceasing to be capital. This drive to reignite accumulation lies behind the far-right public demonstrations demanding an end to the lockdown, in a way similar to how the most reactionary sectors of capital funded and promoted the Tea Party following the 2008 financial collapse, which in turn mobilized behind Trumpism.

COVID-19, Capitalism, And Socialism

April 20, 2020 Victor Wallis, Political Animal Magazine. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Pandemic, Socialism

The COVID-19 emergency underscores longstanding truths about capitalism and socialism. Acting on the most immediate demands that it raises draws us directly into a confrontation with core issues. COVID-19 is exceptionally contagious, and those who are infected by it do not necessarily show symptoms. These two traits, in combination, guarantee rapid spread of the virus unless certain requirements have been met. Most directly, there must be ample supplies of the appropriate diagnostic tests, personal protective gear (masks, gloves, hand sanitizers, etc., especially for healthcare workers), and ventilators. At a more basic level, there must be an adequate healthcare infrastructure. This means that there must be enough hospitals and enough healthcare professionals and support staff to be able to respond effectively to emergencies.

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