{"id":45162,"date":"2020-03-18T07:58:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T07:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/?p=45162"},"modified":"2020-04-12T14:38:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T14:38:17","slug":"covid-19-capitalism-on-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2020\/03\/18\/covid-19-capitalism-on-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19 – capitalism on trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

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… wealth is increasingly concentrated among a privileged few while millions are barely subsisting. Women are dying for lack of decent maternity care and children are denied an education that could be their route out of poverty.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t have to be this way \u2013 there is enough wealth in the world to give all a fair chance in life. Governments should ensure taxes on wealth, and businesses paying their fair share, fund free, good-quality public services to transform people\u2019s lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Matthew Spencer<\/strong><\/a>, Director of Campaigns & Policy, Oxfam<\/p>\n

With all due respect, Matthew Spencer is a well paid idiot. Sorry, but as the Bard of Minnesota put it: let us not speak falsely now, the hour is getting late. Mr Spencer may know a great deal about poverty but his words here tell me he knows nothing of capitalism and, like a child for whom mince pie crumbs in the hearth on Xmas Morning prove the existence of Santa, takes Western democracy at face value.<\/p>\n

What caused covid-19’s emergence may become clear in the fullness of time. I neither rule out nor in that its origins lie in biological warfare. Certainly, my suspicions were kindled when the two countries hardest hit were China and Iran, long demonised by our opinion manufacturers in the name of reasons that have nothing to do with the real ones.<\/p>\n

Right now I’m not in the business of second guessing, and anyway the question of the virus’s orgins is secondary to that of its impact. On which, being neither clinician nor epidemiologist, I’m reliant on the expertise of others, triangulated as best I can through multiple sources. On my reading list today is the 23 page report from the Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team, published on March 16 and entitled Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Lucky me.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my thoughts so far on our state of preparedness for a coronavirus less virulent than others but, because faster spreading, posing a greater threat. Yesterday a friend wrote to me with the view that the whole thing has been cooked up and overblown as a trojan horse for introducing draconian steps whose effect will further erode hard won liberties, and further tilt the balance of class forces in the favour of those who rule us.<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t argue with the likelihood – OK, inevitability – that our rulers will want to go down this road. I see a parallel in the 2008 crash, which I don’t believe the billionaires wanted. They sure did turn it to their advantage though, and will try to do the same with covid-19. But if this is a trojan horse to that end, it gets a grade-F fail . As I said to my friend in reply:<\/p>\n

Covid-19 has exposed dramatically the moral and practical bankruptcy of capitalism as nothing in my lifetime has done. At every level – big pharma, inadequate health and social services care, the west’s booming precariat, the demonstrably superior response of nations hitherto demonised (China, Russia, Cuba) – it seems to me that Covid-19 as hoax, trojan horse for further ruling class devilry, fails the cui bono test.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For now I’m sticking with that assessment. The consequences of being wrong strike me as less dangerous than those of wrongly assuming the whole thing a machiavellian slice of fear porn.<\/p>\n

On that note, in particular my view of covid-19 as having “exposed dramatically the moral and practical bankruptcy of capitalism”, let’s take stock of a few basics. Starting with this from an Oxfam assessment<\/strong><\/a> on the eve of the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos:<\/p>\n