Vaccinations, stimulus packages won’t mend the economy

THE social and economic destruction engulfing the United States and dozens of other countries remains out of everyone’s control and more chaos, instability, and insecurity now mark the global landscape.

The ruling elite have repeatedly shown their inability to tackle any serious problems effectively. They are at a loss for how to deal with current problems and refuse to consider any alternative to their obsolete economic system. The best they can do is recycle old ideas to maintain their class power and privilege. Their efforts to block the news focus mainly on promoting disinformation about ‘new and better forms of capitalism,’ including oxymorons like ‘inclusive capitalism,’ ‘responsible capitalism,’ and ‘ethical capitalism.’

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, every week has been a roller coaster for humanity. The economy and society keep lurching from one crisis to another while incoherence and stress keep amplifying. It is said that one in six Americans went into therapy for the first time in 2020.

Unemployment, under-employment, inequality, depression, anxiety, suicide, environmental decay, inflation, debt, healthcare costs, education, and poverty are worsening everywhere. Thousands of businesses that have been around for years keep disappearing left and right.

Top-down actions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have made so many things worse for so many people. Many are wondering which is worse: the COVID-19 virus or the top-down response to the pandemic. Governments everywhere have steadfastly refused to mobilise the people to solve the many problems that are worsening. The moral climate is low and more people are worried about the future.

An atmosphere has been created whereby people are supposed to feel like the exhausting pandemic will last forever and we can all forget about getting back to any normal healthy non-digital relations, activities, and interactions. No society in history has worn face masks for an entire year. We are told over and over again that there is no returning to anything called ‘normal.’ Moving everything online and repeatedly asserting that this is great, ‘cool,’ and wonderful is proving to be unsatisfactory and unfulfilling. People want and need real, direct, non-digital connections and interactions with other human beings. Life behind a screen is not life.

Even with all the restrictions and shutdowns the virus, according to the mainstream media, continues to wreak havoc at home and abroad. It is almost like none of the severe restrictions on people’s freedoms made any difference. People have had to endure this humiliation while also not being permitted any role in deciding the aim, operation, and direction of the economy or any of the affairs of society; they are left out of the equation every step of the way and not even asked for superficial ‘input’ that always goes unheeded anyway. Existing governance arrangements are simply not working to empower people or affirm their rights. The people’s interests and will are blocked at every turn by an outdated political setup that advances only the narrow interests of the rich.

Despite intense pressure to blindly rely on the rich and their political representatives to ‘figure things out,’ this is not working. Nor does it help that the mainstream media approaches multiple crises and issues with endless double-talk, disconnected facts, catchy sound-bites, dramatic exaggerations, angry voices, political axe-grinding, and lots of confusion. Coherence and a human-centred outlook are avoided at all costs. People are constantly left disoriented. Jumping arbitrarily and rapidly from one thing to another in the most unconscious way is presented as useful analysis and information. This is why sorting out basic information has become a full-time job for everyone. People are understandably worn-out and overwhelmed. Disinformation overload degrades mental, emotional, and physical health.

The world has become an uglier and gloomier place — all in the name of ‘improving health.’ It is no surprise that a recent Gallup Poll shows that the majority of Americans are extremely dissatisfied with government, the economy, the culture, and the moral climate.

In this hazardous unstable context, there are two ever-present key pieces of disinformation operating side by side. Both are designed to deprive working people of any say, initiative, outlook, or power.

First, there is the ‘once everyone is vaccinated things will be much better’ disinformation. This ignores the fact that capitalist crises have endogenous causes not exogenous causes and that the economic crisis started well before the pandemic. More than 150 years of recessions, depressions, booms, busts, instability, chaos, and anarchy have not been caused by external phenomena like bacteria, germs, and viruses but by the internal logic and operation of capital itself. A so-called ‘free market’ economy by its very nature and logic ensures ‘winners’ and ‘losers,’ ‘booms’ and ‘busts.’ It is called a dog-eat-dog, fend-for-yourself competitive world for a reason. The modern idea that humans are born to society and have rights by virtue of their being is alien to the ‘free market’ ideology.

Despite the fact that millions have been vaccinated at home and abroad, poverty, inequality, unemployment, debt, and other problems continue to worsen. Businesses continue to suffer and disappear. Hospitality, leisure, recreation, and other sectors have been decimated in many countries. Air travel is dramatically lower. So are car sales. It is not enough to say, ‘Yes, the next few months will be rough and lousy economically speaking but we will get there with more vaccinations. Just be patient, it will all eventually work out.’ This is not what is actually unfolding. The all-sided crisis we find ourselves in started before the COVID-19 pandemic and continues unabated. Such a view also makes a mockery of economic science and the people’s desire to decide the affairs of society and establish much better arrangements that exclude narrow private interests and do not rely on police powers.

In the coming months millions more will be vaccinated but economic decline and decay will continue. Both the rate and amount of profit have been falling for years. And owners of capital are not going to invest in anything when there is no profit to be had and when it is easier instead to balloon fictitious capital and pretend everything is a stock market video game. The lack of vaccinations did not cause the economic collapse the world is currently suffering through, nor will more vaccinations reverse economic decline and decay. The pandemic has largely made some people vastly richer and millions more much poorer. The pandemic has significantly increased inequality. Unfortunately, the so-called ‘great reset’ agenda of the World Economic Forum and Pope Francis’s recent call for a ‘Copernican revolution’ in the economy will make things worse for millions more because they will perpetuate the existing moribund economic system. Such agendas are designed to fool the gullible, block working class consciousness and action, and keep the initiative in the hands of the global oligarchy.

The same applies to so-called ‘stimulus packages.’ Various versions of these top-down monetary and fiscal programmes have been launched in different countries, and while they have assuaged some problems for people, they have not been adequate or fixed any underlying problems. They have not prevented poverty or mass unemployment. Economies remain mired in crisis. In most cases stimulus packages have made things worse by increasing the amount of debt that many generations will have to repay. This is in addition to the many other forms of debt Americans suffer from and rent payments that will one day have to be paid.

Many are also wondering why trillions of dollars can be printed and instantly turned over to the banks and corporations with no discussion but the same cannot be done for social programmes, public enterprises, and the people. Why, for example, can all not get free health care or have taxes eliminated? Why can’t various forms of personal debt be wiped out instantly? If the government can print money for ‘them’, why can’t they print money for ‘us’? Who is government supposed to serve? The billionaires?

Neither the CARES Act of 2020 nor the stimulus package passed in December 2020 nor the one president Biden is pushing for in March 2021 will be adequate or solve any major problems. Many felt that the $600 stimulus checks that went out in December 2020 were pathetic and insulting.

The problem lies with a socialised productive economy run by everyone but owned and controlled by a tiny handful of competing private interests determined to maximise profit as fast as possible regardless of the damage to the social and natural environment. There is no way for the economy to benefit all individuals and serve the general interests of society so long as it is dominated by a handful of billionaires. The social wealth produced by workers cannot benefit workers and society if workers themselves do not control the wealth they produce and have first claim to.

The outlook, agenda, and reference points of the rich must be rejected and replaced by a human-centred aim, agenda, direction, and outlook. The current trajectory is untenable and unsustainable. The situation is dangerous in many ways, but perhaps one good thing to come out of the accelerated pace of chaos, anarchy, and instability are the contradictions that are presenting new opportunities for action with analysis that favours working people.

DissidentVoice.org, February 14. Shawgi Tell is author of the book Charter School Report Card.

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