We need disciplined, socialist solutions to the coming capitalist coronavirus crisis

It is a terrible and deadly irony that the mainstream media and idiot pundits in the United States went on and on about how the coronavirus was allegedly exposing the flaws of the Chinese system. There were countless, gloating headlines calling it "China's Chernobyl" and asking if it would bring the downfall of the Communist Party. The fact that the Chinese then rapidly took tremendous, Herculean and ultimately successful steps to contain the outbreak was either belittled or ignored.


Now the virus is about to ferociously expose the far deeper flaws of the American system with alarming implications for the world.

The utter idiocy of an advanced nation that could easily have universal health care and an extensive public health network but that has -- driven by ideology and a ruling political class bought and paid for by big business -- chosen not to build this, is about to be exposed in the most awful of ways.

It is hardly a surprise that the powers that be are desperate to minimize or cover up what is unfolding, because if it blows up in the ways that it is very likely to it is going to be a brutal reckoning and it will be the racialized, marginalized, workers and people living in poverty who will again pay by far the highest price.

For a cruel, ugly society where workers in many states have few rights and can be fired for any reason, where the social safety net is either sadistic or virtually non-existent (or both), where many millions of people are terrified to go to the doctor due to cost, and where the medical and pharmaceutical industries are driven entirely by the profit motive, COVID-19 is a perfect storm.

In Canada where the situation is somewhat better, the fact remains that countless Canadians are a couple of paychecks away from being in serious financial trouble and it is possible that millions of us will have to stay home from work at some point for as long as two weeks or more.

We need rapid, disciplined, socialist solutions to this and we need to pressure our governments to implement them now.

While the Trudeau government is going to waive the one-week waiting period for employment insurance this is far from enough. The maximum that anyone can get from EI is $573 a week. Predictably useless calls from folks like the Ontario NDP for 5 paid sick days and the right to emergency leave will do little for workers who are quarantined for 14 days or more.

At the very least we need to be calling for full pay for all employees forced to stay home in quarantine and ideally the vast bulk of the cost of this should be borne by the larger and highly profitable employers, possibly through a special, emergency tax on major corporations and banks. There also needs to be adequate emergency compensation for those workers and the self-employed who are not eligible for EI or for even the $573 a week.

In the United Kingdom Alistair Cartwright in Counterfire argued for 8 other left solutions to the crisis ahead, all of which, to one degree or another, apply here as well. These include mass testing and tracing, extending statutory sick pay to all workers, pensioners on low-incomes to be eligible for one-off grants to cover food, fuel and travel costs, price controls to be introduced on essential medical equipment and drugs, private hospitals to be put under public management and no "scapegoating of Chinese people, Italians, immigrants or anyone else".

In addition to this the total inanity of continuing to allow mass public gatherings needs to reexamined immediately. It cannot be left to organizations like the NHL, NBA, MLB and other corporate interests to decide when the time has come to stop permitting thousands and thousands of people to gather at sporting events, concerts, amusement parks, on cruise ships, etc. In fact, that time may have already come.

It is public health experts who need to determine this and they should have the power to do so. It cannot be left to the market.

After 2008 -- with the bailouts, lack of prosecution of Wall St criminals and the implementation of what many called "socialism for the rich" to save corporate America -- it was working people who paid for corporate malfeasance. Now as the coronavirus crisis looms we cannot allow a "solution" that will see millions of workers face destitution, bankruptcy and homelessness in addition to illness and the possible deaths of loved ones and family. We cannot allow big corporations guided by profit to make public health decisions that should be made by the government and for the people.

We need to demand better.

Update: Since this was first posted both the NBA and NHL have suspended their seasons indefinitely. Unsurprising and the right move, but why was it left up to major corporations and corporate interests to make these decisions?

These decisions should have been and should be made going forward by public health officialsand governments in the best interests of the people.