Covid and Class Struggle

 "Let me turn now to why the government and the private sector have failed to contain the (Corona) virus. Here in this country (USA - ed.) a struggle developed between the scientific community [and] the health community that wanted to take the usual steps - the masking, the social distancing, all the other requirements of combating a viral pandemic - vs. the capitalist business community. The capitalist business community discovered early on an old lesson of economics. You can have a wonderful factory, or office, or store, equipped with all the latest computers, and full of all the raw materials you need, but nothing will happen and you will earn zero profit. You have to have the one absolutely essential crucial ingredient and that is labor. Human beings using their brains and muscles. And the Covid pandemic deprived businesses of human beings because the shoppers and buyers were afraid to go in to the crowded stores and restaurants and the laborers were afraid to go in to the crowded workspaces. And so the labor wasn't forthcoming. And the business community suffered. Loss of profits. So they put enormous pressure on our political leaders to open the country up, to minimize or avoid lockdowns, to minimize or avoid masks because they interfere. And most of all the mask was a kind of constant reminder to everybody that we were in a dangerous place in relationship to this illness. So the business community wanted not to respond in the ways that other countries did. And the business community made use of the demonization of the government, which is a way that capitalism survives in the United States. It is always the fault of the government - whatever goes wrong. You may be fired by a capitalist, but you're angry at the politician. This is, of course, a wonderful arrangement for capitalists, because it deflects the anger resulting from capitalist decisions onto the politicians who have at best a tangential relationship to those decisions. And so we had - over and over again - starting with Mr. Trump, and particularly from the right wing in America, the Republican Party, opposition to masks, opposition to social distancing, opposition to lockdowns. And so we did not take the steps that were taken in many other countries. Like the People's Republic of China (pre-Omicron), like New Zealand, like South Korea, like Cuba. Countries with very different economic and political systems, but who were able to support a government that mobilized resources, public and private, to deal with this problem. Having the government mobilize resources is not what American capitalism permits. And it is now paying the price. The Covid disaster is worse in the United States than in any other country on this planet, even though we are one of the richest countries, we have one of the most developed medical care systems, but we weren't prepared and our internal contradictions, which is what they are, prevented this disaster from playing itself out as it is doing literally as I speak with you, when we are breaking new records every day in the number of people getting sick with Covid-19, and the number of people dying from Covid-19."

-------Professor Richard Wolff - Crises of U.S. Capitalism, Pandemic, Crash and Secular Decline, 11/23/20, You Tube