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It is one year since the World Health Organization (WHO), on January 30, 2020, declared that the outbreak of COVID-19 constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a statement accompanying the declaration noting that 98 cases had been reported in 18 countries outside of China. Although these numbers are still relatively small compared to the number of cases in China, he said, we must all act together now to limit further spread.

One year later, the total number of cases has passed 100 million. The total number of deaths has reached 2,225,000. The daily death toll is the highest it has ever been, with more than 14,000 people succumbing to the virus every day.

In the United States, there have been 26,107,110 cases, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center, and the death toll has reached 440,000. In India, there are more than 10 million reported cases and 154,000 deaths. In Brazil, more than 9 million cases and 223,000 deaths. In the United Kingdom, nearly 4 million cases and 106,000 deaths. In Italy, 2.5 million cases and more than 88,000 deaths.

The International Committee of the Fourth International, at the earliest stages of the crisis, identified the pandemic as a trigger event, comparable to World War I, that would intensify and accelerate the profound contradictions of the global capitalist system. The health crisis would evolve inevitably into a global social and political crisis. Medical measures alone would not bring the pandemic under control.

Rather, the struggle to contain the pandemic would develop into a class struggle, as it became increasingly clear that the major classes in societythe capitalist class and the working classhave irreconcilably opposed interests. These antagonistic positions find expression in the conflict between the capitalist and socialist programs.

The positions of the ruling class proceed from the defense of capitalist property: the private ownership of the means of production and the geostrategic interests of the nation state. The positions of the working class strive objectively toward socialism: the ending of the profit system and exploitation of labor, and its replacement with the scientifically planned reorganization of economic life on the basis of human needs and the global unification of mankind through the abolition of the nation-state system.

One year into the crisis, the pandemic has starkly revealed the class divide that separates the capitalist and socialist programs.

1. The capitalist program insists that the response to the pandemic must prioritize saving the financial markets over saving lives.

The socialist program insists that the response to the pandemic must prioritize saving lives over saving the financial markets.

2. The capitalist program asserts that pandemic policy must be driven by profit interests.

The socialist program advocates that medical policy must be guided by science.

3. The capitalist program advocates a program of herd immunity, allowing the virus to spread with as few restrictions as possible while vaccinations are produced and distributed.

The socialist program calls for all measures to impede virus transmission until the necessary number of people to stop community spread of the virus have been inoculated.

4. The capitalist program insists, in accordance with its herd immunity strategy, that factories and other workplaces be kept open for business.

The socialist program insists that all nonessential workplaces be closed down until inoculated workers can safely return to their jobs.

5. The capitalist program demands that schools be reopened, claiming falsely that there is little risk to students and teachers.

The socialist program, based on scientific evidence that schools are a major source of virus transmission, demands that schools remain closed until the pandemic has been brought under control.

6. The capitalist program seeks to restrict social expenditures aimed at counteracting the economic impact of the pandemic on the great mass of the people, while demanding that central banks provide unlimited support for the financial markets and large corporations.

The socialist program demands full income compensation to workers and small businesses for the duration of the crisis. The resources for this critical social rescue plan will be obtained through the immediate restitution of the trillions of dollars extended to the large corporations under the provisions of the CARES Act, and the expropriation of the pandemic profiteers who have made tens of millions and even billions of dollars as a result of unlimited Federal Reserve support for the financial markets.

7. The capitalist program promotes a policy of vaccination nationalism, restricting and opposing equitable distribution of vaccines throughout the world.

The socialist program, recognizing that the coronavirus can be eradicated only through a scientifically directed international strategy, calls for a globally coordinated inoculation program.

The divergent class interests in responding to the coronavirus pandemic are behind the increasingly sharp political divisions. The ruling class, fearful of mounting opposition to its profit-driven program of herd immunity, is encouraging the growth of fascist organizations.

The working class, in developing its own response to the pandemic, is recognizing the need for class unity, militant class action and, above all, an international socialist and revolutionary political strategy.

The policies fought for by the Socialist Equality Party in the United States and those of the parties and organizations throughout the world that are affiliated with the International Committee of the Fourth International articulate and advance the objective interests of the American and international working class. The time has come for all those who support the program of socialism to become actively engaged in the struggle for its realization.

The rest is here:
Capitalism vs. socialism: The pandemic and the global class struggle - WSWS

I understand why Democrats are fuming.

Donald Trump ran up budget deficits in his first three years to levels seen in our history only during major wars and financial crises thanks to tax cuts, military spending and little fiscal discipline. But now that Joe Biden wants to spend more on pandemic relief and prevent the economy from tanking further, many Republicans on cue are rediscovering their deficit hawk wings.

What frauds.

We need to do whatever it takes to help the most vulnerable Americans who have lost jobs, homes or businesses to Covid-19 and to buttress cities overwhelmed by the virus. So, put me down for a double dose of generosity.

But, but, but when this virus clears, we ALL need to have a talk.

There has been so much focus in recent years on the downsides of rapid globalisation and neoliberal free-market groupthink influencing both Democrats and Republicans that weve ignored another, more powerful consensus that has taken hold on both parties: That we are in a new era of permanently low interest rates, so deficits dont matter as long as you can service them, and so the role of government in developed countries can keep expanding which it has with steadily larger bailouts, persistent deficit spending, mounting government debts and increasingly easy money out of central banks to finance it all.

This new consensus has a name: Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest, argues Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, author of The Ten Rules of Successful Nations and one of my favourite contrarian economic thinkers.

Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest happens, Sharma explained in a phone interview, when government intervention does more to stimulate the financial markets than the real economy. So, Americas richest 10%, who own more than 80% of US stocks, have seen their wealth more than triple in 30 years, while the bottom 50%, relying on their day jobs in real markets to survive, had zero gains. Meanwhile, mediocre productivity in the real economy has limited opportunity, choice and income gains for the poor and middle class alike.

The best evidence is the last year: Were in the middle of a pandemic that has crushed jobs and small businesses but the stock market is soaring. Thats not right. Thats elephants flying. I always get worried watching elephants fly. It usually doesnt end well.

And even if we raise taxes on the rich and direct more relief to the poor, which I favour, when you keep relying on this much stimulus, argues Sharma, youre going to get lots of unintended consequences. And we are.

For instance, Sharma wrote in July in a Wall Street Journal essay titled The Rescues Ruining Capitalism, that easy money and increasingly generous bailouts fuel the rise of monopolies and keep alive heavily indebted zombie firms, at the expense of startups, which drive innovation. And all of that is contributing to lower productivity, which means slower economic growth and a shrinking of the pie for everyone.

As such, no one should be surprised that millennials and Gen Z are growing disillusioned with this distorted form of capitalism and say that they prefer socialism.

The past few years should have been an era of huge creative destruction. With so many new cheap digital tools of innovation, so much access to cheap high-powered computing and so much easy money, startups should have been exploding. They were not.

Before the pandemic, the US was generating startups and shutting down established companies at the slowest rates since at least the 1970s, Sharma wrote. The number of publicly traded US companies had fallen by nearly half, to around 4,400, since the peak in 1996. (The number of startups has increased in the pandemic, but that may be because so many businesses closed.)

Alas, though, big companies are becoming huge and more monopolistic in this easy money, low interest rate era. Its not only because the internet created global winner-take-all markets, which have enabled companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple to amass cash piles bigger than the reserves of many nation-states. Its also because they can so easily use their inflated stock prices or cash hoards to buy up budding competitors and suck up all the talent and resources crowding out the little guys, Sharma said.

So, yes, yes, yes we must, right now, help our fellow citizens, who are hurting, through this pandemic. But instead of more cash handouts, maybe we should do it the way the Koreans, Taiwanese, Singaporeans, Chinese and other East Asians have been doing it cash assistance to only the most vulnerable and more investments in infrastructure that improve productivity and create good jobs. The East Asians also focus on making their governments smarter, particularly around delivering things like health care, rather than bigger one reason they have gotten through this pandemic with less pain.

Biden plans a big infrastructure package soon. He totally gets it. I just hope that Congress, and the markets, dont have debt fatigue by the time we get to the most productive medicine: infrastructure.

Going forward, how about more inclusive capitalism for everyone and less knee-jerk socialism for rich people. Economies grow from more people inventing and starting stuff. Without entrepreneurial risk and creative destruction, capitalism doesnt work, Sharma wrote. Disruption and regeneration, the heart of the system, grind to a halt. The deadwood never falls from the tree. The green shoots are nipped in the bud.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

Read more:
Feeding monopolies and zombies: Made in the USA: Socialism for the Rich. Capitalism for the Rest - The Times of India Blog

President Biden signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., January 20, 2021.(Tom Brenner/Reuters)

AlthoughPoliticos flagship product, Playbook,is still recovering from Ben Shapiros problematic guest appearance a couple weeks back, todays iteration of the morning newsletter still managed to scrounge together some interesting quotes from a longtime Biden aide, who remains unnamed. Per the aide, the White Houses decision to move forward with a reckless $1.9 trillion relief package instead of pursuing a less frivolous bipartisan bill, runs counter to Bidens instincts. Noting the harsh tone of the statement Biden issued on the Republican proposal, the advisor mused that I think it sounded more like Ron Klain than Joe Biden. Klain, Bidens chief of staff, is reportedly still bitter over Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act a decade ago, and his governing philosophy was warped by the experience. Politicos source explained Ron has this whole thing: Remember how they rat-fed us on the ACA!, the expletive standing in for disagreed with.

One of the Trump campaigns favorite attacks on Biden was that he would be a Trojan horse for socialism. Neither Bidens affect nor his record lent itself to this message. What is true is that Biden is susceptible to having his back-slapping instincts overridden by the technocratic partisans hes surrounded himself with. Partisans who are irrationally vexed by any pushback on their agenda, and who believe any such pushback to be obstructionism for obstructionisms sake.

Biden may not be Bernie Sanders with a grin, but his is likely to be the Vox.com presidency, and any illusions of unity or a return to regular order in Congress should be discarded after his outright rejection of a good-faith effort at bipartisanship.

Go here to read the rest:
Biden: Tool of the Partisan Left, Not Socialism - National Review

Despite the afternoon showers, about 12 vehicles participated in a caravan protest which drove around low-income neighborhoods of Springfield Saturday afternoon.

Protesters, who gathered at Grant Beach Park, were in support of the national "Cancel the Rents" movement, created in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on renters and homeowners. The movement was initiated by the Party of Socialism and Liberations (PSL), a national socialist political party.

Caravans across the country showed their support of the movement for a weekend-long demonstration, held Jan. 29-31 in cities including Atlanta, Ga., Denver, Colo. and Los Angeles, Calif.

One-time stimulus checks of any amount are not sufficient, we need consistent replacement income for those who cannot work, the Cancel the Rents website states.

In March 2020, former President Donald Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act into law. The act responds to the pandemics impact on the economy, public health, state and local governments, individuals and businesses, according to the United States Congress.

Initially, the CARES Act provided $1,200 stimulus checks per individual within American households with incomes less than $99,000 with up to $500 per underage dependent, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury. The CARES Act of 2021 will pay individuals an additional $600 and up to $600 per qualifying dependents.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, as of December 2020, despite the federal financial help, one of five renters were not caught up on rent payments due to the pandemic and 31% of renters living with children are twice as likely to not be caught up on payments.

We believe there is no way this country can come out of this crisis unless rents are canceled and mortgages are stopped, Gloria La Riva, co-founder of the PSL, said.

La Riva attended the caravan with her husband Richard Becker, who is also a member of the PSL. La Riva said the two spent four days driving from San Francisco, Calif. to Springfield for the protest.

La Riva said she and Becker love Springfield but are concerned for its residents.

Going through Springfield, it is shocking how many homes are boarded up, how many broken windows there are with people living in them and its a crisis of homelessness, poor housing, crowded housing and people who cant pay, La Riva said.

According to the Ozarks Alliance to End Homelessness 2020 Unsheltered Point-in-Time Report, a survey conducted in communities across the country on a given night in January counting the number of individuals experiencing homelessness, 238 Springfield community members were homeless on Jan. 30, 2020. 68% of the surveys participants reported sleeping on the streets or in a homeless camp the night prior.

In September 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention established a national eviction moratorium a temporary halt of residential evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic until Jan. 31, 2021, according to the CDC.

However, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky extended the moratorium to March 31, states a CDC media statement released on Wednesday, Jan. 20.

Members of the Cancel the Rents movement, including Springfield PSL member Ryan Minor, who participated in Saturdays caravan, dont believe the extension is enough.

These moratoriums are only a delay, Minor said. Once this moratorium ends, people wont be able to pay that back. I dont know of any regular working person who can do that. If theyre already suffering to the point where they cant pay rent, they certainly wont be able to later.

Minor, La Riva and Becker were only three of those who concluded the caravan at Westport Park to eat pizza and discuss the movement under the parks pavilion as rain continued to pour down.

For more information about Cancel the Rents, visit canceltherents.org

Follow Greta Cross on Twitter, @gretacrossphoto

Subscribe to The Standard's free weekly newsletter here.

Read the rest here:
Springfield Party of Socialism and Liberations host Cancel the Rents caravan protest - Standard Online

Kathleen Ochs letter (A perspective on socialism, Jan. 26) argues that West Virginias vaccination success proves There is no contest in the private sectors ability to meet the needs of the people (i.e., capitalism) vs. the governments ability to timely meet the needs of the people (i.e., socialism). But West Virginia demonstrates effective government action, not the market responding to a public health crisis. Their success rests on the following realities (NYT, Jan 24):

Instead of a patchwork of voluntary private enterprise actors, the state took control and paired independent pharmacies with 200 nursing homes.

They put the National Guard at the helm of vaccine operations. Direction of the program is under control of the National Guard working with state agencies hardly a private enterprise approach.

West Virginia University Medicine a state actor opened a mega-clinic in Morgantown.

West Virginia does not allow philosophical exemptions for opting out of immunizations required for school attendance, which has created a culture where acceptance of vaccinations may be more prevalent.

Rather than capitalism versus socialism, West Virginia is an example of a relatively small state in which the state government has aggressively taken central charge of COVID-19 vaccinations and relied on the National Guard to implement military-type organization and direction to assure the program is a success. It does partner with private sector entities, as do any reasonable governments.

Public health is almost always an essential government function, poorly served by private enterprise, because it takes a government to deal with the tragedy of the commons.

Bill Fassett

Spokane

Read more from the original source:
Public health and socialism - The Spokesman-Review