Socialism

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.

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.

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.

Coronavirus And The Crisis This Time

April 20, 2020 Sam Gindin, The Bullet. Strategize! COVID-19, Recession, Socialism, Working Class

Crises – not regular downturns but major crises – are characterized by the uncertainty they bring. They interrupt the normal and require yet-to-be discovered abnormal responses in order for us to move on. In the midst of these periodic calamities, we don’t know how or even whether we will stumble out of them nor what to expect if they do end. Crises are, consequently, moments of turmoil with openings for new political developments, good and bad. Because each such crisis modifies the trajectory of history, the subsequent crisis occurs in a changed context and so has its own distinct features. The crisis of the 70s, for example, involved a militant working class, a challenge to the American dollar, and a qualitative acceleration in the role of finance and of globalization.

Contrasting Health Systems

April 19, 2020 Pasqualina Curcio Curcio, Ultimas Noticias, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Profit motive, Socialism

In the catalog of health provision and financing systems, we find a wide range, from the most private to the public and free of charge. There are systems whose provision and financing are completely privatized, such as the United States, Chile and Colombia, where the facilities that provide health services are private and in order to enter and be served, people have two options: either they pay for the service out of their own pockets or they take out an insurance policy so that when a contingency arises, they pay the bill. This type of health system based on the intermediation of insurance companies in which a “third party” pays, in addition to being extremely costly (the insurance company keeps a margin of the business’ profit) is the most exclusive: 1) if you do not have how to take out a policy, the safest thing, worth the redundancy, is to be left out, and in this unequal world in which 1% of the world’s population appropriates 82% of the wealth, it is many, many people who do not have sufficient resources to take out health insurance.

Pandemic, The Left And Workers’ Power

April 18, 2020 Juan Cruz Ferre, Left Voice. Strategize! COVID-19, Electoral Politics, Socialism, Working Class

There are over 140,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., but the actual number of infected individuals is probably already in the millions. We don’t know the real incidence of infections because the Trump administration has intentionally restricted the availability of tests in order to keep numbers artificially low. For this reason, we missed a golden opportunity to detect cases early, trace their contacts and isolate before there was community circulation of the virus. Now it’s too late. ICUs are overflowing in New York City, and we can expect similar situations in other cities as they reach their peak of infected individuals. We are on track to finding ourselves in a scenario like the one in Italy or in Spain, but with a population that’s five times larger and without universal health care. In New York State alone, there were 279 deaths in the 24 hours of Monday, March 30.

Capitalism Has Failed In Fighting Coronavirus

April 10, 2020 Richard D. Wolff, Brave New Europe. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Economic collapse, Socialism

The desperate policies of panic-driven governments involve throwing huge amounts of money at the economies collapsed in response to the coronavirus threat. Monetary authorities create money and lend it at extremely low interest rates to the major corporations and especially big banks “to get them through the crisis.” Government treasuries borrow vast sums to get the collapsed economy back into what they imagine is “the normal, pre-virus economy.” Capitalism’s leaders are rushing into policy failures because of their ideological blinders. The problem of policies aimed to return the economy to what it was before the virus hit is this: Global capitalism, by 2019, was itself a major cause of the collapse in 2020. Capitalism’s scars from the crashes of 2000 and 2008-2009 had not healed.

China’s Socialist Planning And COVID-19

April 9, 2020 Sara Flounders, Workers.org. Educate! China, COVID-19, International Solidarity, Socialism

The global COVID-19 viral pandemic has exposed in the sharpest light the contradiction between a globalized world economy and a still existing but archaic capitalist system based on the private expropriation of wealth and resources. The relentless drive to reap a profit from every type of human interaction now stands exposed as the greatest danger to the people of the whole planet. At the same time, China is sending enormous amounts of assistance to countries desperate for medical and personal protective equipment. These massive solidarity shipments demonstrate the superiority of China’s basic socialist planning. China is sending by air, rail and sea needed medical equipment to 89 countries around the world. This includes test kits, facemasks, protective clothing, goggles, forehead thermometers and ventilators.

Socialism At Its Finest After Fed’s Bazooka Fails

March 24, 2020 Staff, Ellenbrown.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Socialism

The financial crisis began in late February, when the World Health Organization announced that it was time to prepare for a global pandemic. The Russia-Saudi oil price war added fuel to the flames, causing all three Wall Street indices to fall more than 7 percent on March 9. It was called Black Monday, the worst drop since the Great Recession in 2008; but it would get worse.

The Socialist Specter In Present-Day US Politics

March 20, 2020 Victor Wallis, Counterpunch.org Educate! Ideology, Inequality, Socialism

The US political scene is haunted by talk of socialism. The basis for this has been developing now for some years, especially since the financial meltdown of 2008, which many came to see as decisive proof that a capitalist economy does not serve the majority. But how does this new mass perception express itself? On the one hand, there is wide recognition of the grotesque level of inequality, as expressed in the slogan...

Pete Dolack: “It’s Past Time We Had An Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Imperialist Global Front”

March 2, 2020 Pete Dolack, Mohsenabdelmoumen.wordpress.com Strategize! Books, Ideology, Socialism

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Your fascinating book It’s not over: Learning From the Socialist Experiment shows us why we need to move beyond capitalism and it also provides the tools on how to do so. Can you explain to our readers how we can effectively fight to destroy definitively this aberrant system that is capitalism?

The Ecosocialist Solution To Ecological Catastrophe

February 28, 2020 Michael Löwy, Globalecosocialistnetwork.net Strategize! Climate Change, Ecology, Ideology, Socialism

The future of the planet, and thus of humanity, will be determined in the coming decades. Calculations by certain scientists as to scenarios for the year 2100 aren’t very useful for two reasons: A) scientific: considering all the retroactive effects impossible to calculate, it is very risky to make projections over a century.

The Push To Create Co-ops Is Energizing A New Generation Of Socialists

February 6, 2020 Richard D Wolff, Truthout.org Create! Cooperatives, Economics, New Economy, Socialism

On the other hand, socialism was the name adopted by Western European — and especially Scandinavian — “welfare-state” governments, which aimed to regulate markets comprised still mostly of private capitalist firms. This led many people to associate socialism with robust public spending and government intervention in the marketplace.

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