Capitalism is set up like a house of cards. Disjointed supply chains, competition for component parts, research and technology hoarded there are weak spots and vulnerabilities built into every joint in the capitalist system.
The COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic crisis which has been brewing for a decade, has caused that house of cards to collapse. Describing the breakdown in the global supply chains,The New York Times(4/10/2020) reported,
At some ports, goods are piling up, while elsewhere container ships sail empty. Dairy farmers are dumping their milk, while grocery store shelves have been picked bare.
Mike Jette, the vice president of consulting services at GEP a company that provides supply chain software and strategy for major corporations like ExxonMobil and Walmart predicts that peak disruption for big corporations with international supply chains would likely happen three months from now.
We are currently facing a potentially dangerous shortage of key goods: food, medicine, toilet paper, and certain electronics. This is not because we ran out of supplies, or because we lack the capacity to make more. It is because companies and entire industries are scrambling to reorganize supply chains that have been built around finding the cheapest possible raw materials, component parts, and labor.
Food Supply Breaking Down
In a truly dystopian illustration of this problem, there are currently mountains of food being shovelled back into the ground by wholesale producers while grocery store shelves and food banks sit empty.
According toThe Guardian(4/9/2020) Roughly half the food grown in the U.S. was previously destined for restaurants, schools, stadiums, theme parks, and cruise ships.
There is plenty of food being grown and produced, but the nature of the demand has changed. Industrial kitchens are shuttered as large gatherings are on hold and farmers are scrambling to find customers for their excess food. The USDA did not step in to buy up excess food despite repeated pleas and now there is consensus among industry insiders that a potential food shortage is impending.
There has been no coordinated response from the federal or state governments to intervene, buy surplus crops, and distribute them to families in need, so millions of pounds of fresh food is left to rot. The myth of the invisible hand of the market is being exposed with deadly consequences.
An Alternative to Capitalist Anarchy
Illness and disease is unavoidable. Under any form of society, human beings will be susceptible to viruses and infections. (Though it is undeniable that epidemics are growing in frequency due to our constant encroachment on natural habitats.) However, what is by no means predetermined is the scale of destruction and death that sickness can cause.
The food supply issues weve identified above are just one example of how completely ill-equipped the capitalist system is to deal with the effects of a global pandemic.
From the drastic shortages of critical medical supplies to the millions without affordable health care or any health care coverage. From the low wages and lack of paid leave that force millions to work through sickness to the denial of needed personal protective equipment (PPE) to front-line workers as a way for bosses to cut costs.
None of these factors, which have exacerbated hundreds-fold the depth of this crisis, are inevitable. They are the result of a system designed to extend the profits of the rich at the expense of the health and safety of the rest of us.
What is needed to avoid this scale of calamity is a dramatic reorganization of society on a democratically planned basis. We need a socialist economic system where democratically elected councils of workers make the key decisions about how we invest societys resources.
Such a society would be far better equipped to react to a crisis on the scale of this pandemic for many reasons. Here are just a few.
The shortage of PPE for U.S. health care workers has deadly consequences. The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on industry and governments to increase PPE manufacturing by 40% to meet the dire need.
General Electric workers in Lynn, Massachusetts have protested outside corporate headquarters demanding that currently idle factories be rapidly put to use making needed medical supplies.
Under a workers government, such a protest or pleas from the WHO would not be needed. Workers representatives, nationally and internationally, would debate and decide on the broad priorities for production and the distribution of resources based on the needs of society. Workers representatives in each industry, down to the enterprise level would then discuss and agree on how to implement these priorities.
Therefore when there is a clear and proven need for ventilators or masks factories could be rapidly retooled to make these products en masse. Multi-purpose factories could be built in order to accommodate the rapidly changing needs of society. Without profit in the mix, production can be determined by human need not the tunnel-vision greed of corporate bosses.
Despite being a global economic superpower, the U.S. has been pummelled by the COVID-19 outbreak. There are numerous reasons for this, including the Trump regimes flippant dismissal of the impending crisis for months. Additionally, a key contributor has been the lack of available testing and the devastatingly low capacity of the U.S.s resource-starved public healthcare system following decades of cuts. On February 10 Trump released his proposed 2021 budget which includes further cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, the CDC, as well as the U.S. contribution to the WHO.
On both an individual and societal level, testing is a crucial tool to limit the spread of viruses. For health care professionals, testing an individual patient allows for an accurate and quick treatment plan to be administered, including immediate isolation. It also allows for the identification of whoever that individual has had contact with therefore far more accurately containing localized spreads of the virus. On a macro level, accurate testing information is a key component of mapping the spread, contagiousness, and general life cycle of the virus.
In the U.S., rather than using the already in-use WHO test, the Trump administration instructed the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to develop its own test. The CDC, however, is not set up to distribute and carry out mass testing in the event of a pandemic. When the CDC tests were found to be faulty, the Trump administration did not rush to find a solution. The Trump administration made a political decision to reject the WHO test, putting millions of lives at risk.
On the basis of a workers government and a socialist economy, where medical research and technology is in public hands, scientists from across the country who are currently idle as labs and universities are closed could have been deployed to develop accurate testing equipment as well as a vaccine. Tens of thousands of health care workers, alongside workers in non-essential industries, could be sent in to set up testing stations in every community. Testing could be done on a truly mass scale, an essential first step for effectively containing the spread of the virus. This would enable medical professionals to have a better sense of where there are clusters of the disease and to follow up with contact tracing. This will also require tens of thousands of workers across the country and will be pivotal in taking immediate action to limit the spread and prevent a massive second surge.
If the approach weve elaborated were taken, extensive lockdowns would be generally unnecessary. A socialist society would develop a democratically agreed plan for dealing with virus outbreaks, therefore preventing it from escalating to such a disastrous degree. On the basis of the chaos created by capitalism, however, lockdowns have been a necessity in most countries with a few exceptions.
Hospitals in many states are bursting at the seams with sick patients and health care workers are putting their lives on the line with devastatingly limited supplies of PPE.
Under a workers government, the priorities of society would be vastly reorganized. Health care would no longer be subject to the whims of billionaire executives and decisions about where to allocate resources would be made nationally with the input of workers in the industry. This would go beyond just Medicare for All or a single-payer health care system at the point of care. It would include the public ownership of the entire health care industry including hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry, as well as medical device companies. In such a situation it is difficult to imagine nurses wearing garbage bags or four patients being forced to share a ventilator.
If nurses and health care professionals had direct democratic input in deciding how to run our hospitals, they would not have to beg for safe staffing or basic supplies. High-quality health care would be a priority of a society whose sole purpose was to meet human need. Therefore hospitals would be given ample funding for beds, more well-trained staff, and necessary supplies and equipment. Sick people could get high-quality treatment at no cost and health care workers could do their jobs with far less fear of infection or death.
Global supply chains are being thrown into turmoil by the coronavirus pandemic. This is not a surprise given the huge amount of redundancies and kinks in the capitalist supply chain. In a bizarre illustration of this, as we wrote in our August 2019 article Climate Catastrophe and the Case for a Planned Economy:
When a car is being assembled, almost every single component part will travel to Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. over and over before the parts come together to form a car. The metal base of a steering wheel thats produced in the U.S. is sent to Mexico to get covered and stitched up before being sent back to the U.S. This is entirely so the company can find the cheapest supplies and labor to make their final product.
We do not subscribe to nationalist-based arguments about the need for products to be entirely American-made. It would be impossible to continue developing needed technology if component parts were solely sourced locally. For example, smartphones are full of precious metals like cobalt and lithium that can only be obtained in large enough quantities from Africa or South America.
We are by no means opposed to global trade, however it needs to be efficiently planned in the interests of people and the planet. On the basis of a planned economy, priorities for global trade would be set. If a component part can be sourced locally, it should be in order to minimize the environmental impact of global trade as well as generally making production more efficient.
In a cooperative society, supply chains would not grind to a halt because one factory halfway across the world was unable to supply one component part. This is the reality under capitalism because corporations use just in time methods and become reliant on the suppliers willing to provide the cheapest possible parts. Under a socialist economy, based on cooperation rather than cutthroat competition in the production process, there would be multiple suppliers that could step in to fill a need.
Fight Like Hell
If society were run in the interests of the vast majority of us, we could have contained this virus and prevented a global pandemic. We would not have been forced to work because employers were not required to provide sick leave (since the pandemic broke out, companies with less than 500 employees are required to provide two weeks sick leave) or because we do not have enough savings to miss a paycheck. We would not be left to rot with no basic safety supplies while the billionaires hide out in their compounds. We would not have to ration our food to make rent.
We need to end the rule of billionaires over our lives and their reckless drive for profit at our expense. We need to replace government in the interests of the billionaires with a government of, by and for working people where societys resources are deployed on the basis of need. We need a society where decisions are made democratically by councils of workers internationally, nationally and within industries.
Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, around the world will lay dead at the end of this pandemic, killed by a system that couldnt be bothered to prioritize their lives. For them, well fight for a socialist future.
Read the original here:
Capitalism and COVID-19: Why We Need a Planned Economy - China Worker
- QazInnovations: Kazakhstan seeks to bring volume of innovative ... - inform.kz/en - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- World Earth Day: What is green finance, and why do we need it so much? - The Economic Times - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Netarts Bay cleanup scheduled for Earth Day with SOLVE and ... - Tillamook Headlight-Herald - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Shaping humanitarian and ethical governance in Pakistan - The Express Tribune - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen on the U.S. ... - Treasury - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Investing in nature: Building local economies through conservation - McKinsey - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Lalith's economic vision for Lanka: Export or perish - The Sunday Times Sri Lanka - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy to help A.P. govt. implement energy-efficiency projects - The Hindu - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and ... - The White House - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- A Restraint Approach to U.S.China Relations: Reversing the Slide ... - Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Carrollton Mayor and City Council Election Preview 2023: Meet your ... - Star Local Media - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Governor Kelly Signs Bipartisan Bill to Expand Teacher Workforce in ... - Kansas Governor - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Indigenous Peoples Must Have Full Representation, Participation in ... - United Nations - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- The EPA Region 6 Announces a Total of $23 Million to ... - U.S. EPA.gov - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Kansas governor strikes funding for anti-abortion pregnancy centers ... - Kansas Reflector - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Can You Fight for Climate Justice Without Being Antiwar? - Common Dreams - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Sustainable Tourism: A World leading to the road of Environment consciousness - Nomad Lawyer - NomadLawyer - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Atlanta's Cop City and the Struggle for Climate Justice - Resilience - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Jaishankars visit to Uganda, Mozambique went almost unnoticed but it indicated Indias bold gambit in Africa - Firstpost - April 23rd, 2023 [April 23rd, 2023]
- Natural resource - Wikipedia - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- Non-renewable resource - Wikipedia - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- Minister Wilkinson Launches Phase 2 of the Regional Energy and Resource Tables - Canada NewsWire - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Executive Secretary participates in Russian Energy Week to advocate for decarbonization in the UNECE region ahead of COP27 - UNECE - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Renault Group: The Future Is NEUTRAL: The circular economy is stepping into a new era! - Yahoo Finance - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Economy Expected to Contract Further in 2023, as the Fed Appears Resolved to Tame Inflation - PR Newswire - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Brazils Runoff Election Will Have Enormous Effects on the Global Climate Crisis - Truthout - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Health disparities and health inequalities: applying All Our Health - GOV.UK - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Opinion: Biopolitics is the invisible hand shaping mental health - The Connecticut Mirror - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Avaaz urges Georgieva and Trudeau to lasso-in commitments from IMF to attend December's vital UN Biodiversity Talks in Montreal - GlobeNewswire - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Kochi as a global city? Why not, asks the man behind Ahmedabads mega city story | Manorama English - Onmanorama - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Hennessy and Thurgood Marshall College Fund Announce partnership with Group Black and The Bishop Gallery to make "America's Most Influential... - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Pollution Prevention Week highlights ways to reduce, reuse and recycle waste - Michigan (.gov) - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- England headed for incineration overcapacity, warns UKWIN - Resource Magazine - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- 3 years of the Principles for Responsible Banking: our vision for change United Nations Environment Finance Initiative - UNEP Finance Initiative - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Isn't It Time To Challenge The Growth Paradigm? OpEd - Eurasia Review - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Coalition of Nearly 50 Organizations Launches 'Tear the Paper Ceiling' Campaign to Raise Awareness Around the 70+ Million Workers in the U.S. Skilled... - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Remote work can actually be more productive: More Hub readers respond to the work-from-home phenomenon - The Hub - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Mendocino Public Health on record-setting Sept. heat: We can't just treat this as a once-in-15-years occurrence - The Mendocino Voice - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Carbon Ridge Secures $6 Million Investment from Leading Climate Investors and Maritime Industry Leaders - Business Wire - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Regenerative Travel Is the Next Phase of Responsible Tourism - Outside Online - Outside - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- NNPC: Between rebranding and reforms, By Tijah Bolton-Akpan - Premium Times - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Embodying the spirit of Malaysia - The Edge Markets MY - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Nonprofit executive takes on state-appointed economic development role - MiBiz: West Michigan Business News - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Noble Mineral Exploration Signs Exploration Agreement with the Constance Lake First Nation - Junior Mining Network - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo: A Progressively Deepening Bilateral Partnership - The Geopolitics - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Oil money is flooding into Guyana. Who will benefit? - Reuters - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Remote-work revolution exposes need for better data, tracking tools to evaluate workforce, pay and economy - The Spokesman Review - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- We need rare earth elements for a greener future, but there's a catch - CBC.ca - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- BRNHA the steward of the living traditions of WNC: Opinion - Citizen Times - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- The Fiji Times Back in history: Future of forestry sector - Fiji Times - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Hochul announces grand opening of Capital Region BOCES Career and Technical Education Center - Troy Record - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Predicting the Future of Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Columbia University - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- JD.com Ranks 46th on 2022 Fortune Global 500 - Yahoo Finance - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- Minister Wilkinson Releases New Report Showing the Impacts of Climate Change and Necessity of Climate Adaptation in Ontario - Canada NewsWire - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- Do Armenians have a future as an independent nation? Part 4 - Armenian Weekly - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- Getting the diagnostics right 2 - BusinessWorld Online - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- GrammaTech and T.E.N. Announce Call for Nominations for Product Security Executive of the Year Awards - Business Wire - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- Energy Vault and Jupiter Power Announce Agreement for Battery Energy Storage Projects in Texas and California Totaling 220 MWh - Business Wire - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- The North East LEP: Thinking bigger and planning together for the future - Bdaily - August 15th, 2022 [August 15th, 2022]
- It's not enough to buy American. You also need to sell American all around the world. - The Ripon Society - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Bid to designate 50k acres in UP as wilderness highlights tension over public lands - MLive.com - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- A 'Living Wall' At Texas A&M Could Be The Key To Smarter Cities - Texas A&M University Today - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Architects and designers must embrace the circular economy - Project Scotland - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Strategic Minerals increases Tin and Tantalum production in June and Q2 2022 at its Penouta Mine - Yahoo Finance - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Issues of the Environment: Improving recycling rates and quality of recycling materials in Washtenaw County - WEMU - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Joe Oliver: The Liberal Cabinet Needs an Intervention - The Epoch Times - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- SDG&E and Cajon Valley Union School District Flip the Switch on Region's First Vehicle-to-Grid Project Featuring Local Electric School Buses Capable... - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Reimagining business: The greatest debt of all time - Newsroom - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Moody's affirms A1 rating of Newfoundland and Labrador, changes outlook to stable - Moody's - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- New Mexico's oil and gas revenues are breaking records and complicating budgets - New Mexico Political Report - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- FACT SHEET: White House Announces over $40 Billion in American Rescue Plan Investments in Our Workforce With More Coming - The White House - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- The Class of 2022 Is Ready to Workon Their Terms - SHRM - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Faraday Copper Announces Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for the Copper Creek Project in Arizona; Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources Exceed... - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Inside the Triangle's latest job opening data: What boards are showing and who's hiring - WRAL TechWire - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Reserve Bank keeps blinkers on inflation, raising OCR to 2.5% - Stuff - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- Abe's drive to bring back Japan | The Interpreter - The Interpreter - July 13th, 2022 [July 13th, 2022]
- UCF Hospitality Researchers Expertise Is Tapped for Global Sustainable Tourism Report - UCF - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- Feminist Economics and the Fight for Human Rights - OHCHR - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- Biden Administration announces historic coastal and climate resilience funding - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- Why green ammonia will be the workhorse of EU's future hydrogen economy - EURACTIV - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]