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Review of New York Times Article
Justifying Pay the Rich Schemes

Child Care No. 1 Issue from Workplace Standpoint

Andy Ortiz, the head of Human Resources for a health care provider in southern California, is quoted in the NYT article as saying, "Child care has become the No. 1 issue from a workplace standpoint." Ortiz suggests that child care "is something that has to be dealt with at a national, state or local level." (It should be noted that the article soon abandons child care as the number one issue, replacing it at least for now with the lack of testing for COVID-19.)

The article says about one-third of employers offer child care discounts or subsidies to their employees while those who refuse to provide this benefit complain that "increased care-giving responsibilities [for their employees] had made it harder to be as productive."

The article says employers taking on the social responsibility or payment of child care for their employees have become "overextended" during the pandemic. "The private sector has taken on burdens that many economists believe government is better positioned to shoulder," the author writes. He uses the pandemic crisis to bolster his argument that employers should not be "left to fend for themselves" to deal with social issues.

Social Programs to Confront the Pandemic

The article quotes Jonathan Kolstad, a health economist at the University of California, who says, "Long before everyone cared about this stuff, we used to use communicable disease and pandemics as the definition of a no-brainer for government intervention."

It is an accepted fact that without broad social programs in health care and a government which takes social responsibility the United States is ill prepared to defeat the pandemic and consequently is facing horrendous loss of life and suffering. The U.S. health care system is notorious for being owned and controlled privately with all its disparate parts competing for "customers" and profit. The reality of the pandemic has exposed the disaster of the absence of a universal free socialized health care system where all its parts collaborate to fulfill the aim to serve the health needs of all the people cooperatively and equally throughout their lives. In a country of modern socialized production the lack of socialized medicine and aim to cooperate for the mutual benefit of all is a catastrophe for the people and society.

"Overreliance on the private sector" to provide social programs "has come at a considerable cost to the economy, "the NYT article says. The author wants targeted social programs, which pay the rich, and, in this case, for government to test for the virus. He suggests without evidence or explanation that the federal government could have largely prevented the massive layoff of over 10 million workers if it had more forcefully intervened to pay private companies to test people for COVID-19.

"The federal government was best positioned, and employers were perhaps least equipped, to lead the effort that public health experts believe is central to reviving the economy: widespread testing, to identify people who may be infected even if they don't show symptoms," the author writes.

This focus on testing is an imperialist tactic to deflect attention away from the ensemble of human relations and what they reveal in the present, in particular the necessity for political empowerment of the people to deal with the problems they, the economy and society confront. The pandemic reveals the glaring absence of the people's empowerment to face the problems as they present themselves and to find and implement solutions. The article's facile suggestion of government testing as the magic bullet to deal with the pandemic is an example of the regressive trend of the ruling elite blocking the working people from having the power to mobilize themselves, the human factor/social consciousness, to confront and solve problems.

The article continues in this vein: "A recent study by the Rockefeller Foundation estimated that the country needs to conduct 200 million COVID-19 tests per month just to be able to safely operate schools and nursing homes, to say nothing of other workplaces like factories, restaurants and retail stores. As of early September, fewer than 25 million tests per month were being reported.

"Many economists believe that this shortfall is a market failure the federal government could have prevented. Makers of tests and test supplies, assuming that demand would dry up once the pandemic passed and that employers and insurance companies would be willing to pay only so much for tests in the meantime, balked at the large upfront costs of ramping up production. Only the government could have guaranteed them a sufficient return on that investment -- for example, by promising to buy whatever the manufacturers didn't sell."

But increasing testing capacity is insufficient according to the article's author because of the lack of direction and support from government. Industry experts told him that simply adding capacity is not enough and they prove their point by showing testing capacity in fact outstrips demand. Some labs report "they have the capacity to conduct two or three times as many tests as they are currently processing. The problem is that decisions about whether to test workers often fall to individual employers, who have different views about the usefulness of testing."

The Average Price of a COVID-19 Test in the U.S. Is $100

The author writes that the aim to make money dictates decisions whether to test or not. He complains that decisions are not based on whether testing will help in the general battle against the pandemic but on the private interests of specific enterprises or sectors. He gives the example of professional sports leagues and theatrical productions that "aren't willing to risk any infections and have accepted the costs of screening workers for the virus."

The situation depends on the private calculations of the particular business "whether to pay for frequent, widespread testing. Many executives believe that testing is of little value because they can largely prevent workplace outbreaks through cheaper measures like protective equipment and distancing. Some see testing as more of a public service -- a measure that helps limit the number of infected people circulating in the community but not one that necessarily improves their bottom line."

The article quotes a senior executive of a big company who says bluntly, "I'm not thinking about the public health benefits. My obligation is to our shareholders."

The author says the "same logic" or aim of private profit "applies to other decisions. Employers are generally willing to make investments when they believe that these investments will benefit their business. But they are reluctant to take on costs when it is primarily the public that benefits, in which case it falls to the government to step in."

The article quotes Zack Cooper, an economist at the Yale School of Public Health, saying, "It would have taken federal intervention to get the volume of tests we needed. Some central body aggregating demand, sending a clear enough signal to firms."

The author goes back to the example of child care, which earlier in the article was the number one issue, writing, "Most employers will subsidize child care only if they can recoup the costs through lower absenteeism and turnover so they spend less than is ideal.

"Similarly, employers will typically avoid layoffs if they believe it's cheaper to sustain workers through dry spells than to recruit and train new workers once business picks up again. But the benefits of keeping people employed are far broader, from propping up consumer spending to sparing workers the kind of disruption to employment that can scar them for years If we lose those people, we're looking at another decade of joblessness. That's not just bad for them; it's bad for their families, their communities -- bad for the overall economy."

The author's refusal to see imperialist control of the economy and its narrow aim of maximum private profit as the reactionary thread running throughout the economy, politics and society is typical as well as irresponsible. It blocks the people from unleashing the human factor/social consciousness and taking collective action to solve problems. To not see the contradiction of the socialized economic base and productive forces with the outdated and destructive privately-controlled relations of production is unacceptable because it is what the matter at hand reveals.

The author admits to the regressive imperialist aim in fits and starts without tying the parts together to become a coherent analysis that recognizes what needs to be confronted and changed if problems are to be resolved and society moved forward.

Window dressing throws a veil over a rational argument to cover up the reality, thus delaying the resolution of the problems in a manner which favours the people. The context is introduced which takes the direction of saying that if only policies were improved life would be better. In effect this amounts to a refusal to deal with the human relations which exist and what they reveal. It is reduced to a matter of having a correct understanding, or consciousness, and life will then be made fine. In fact, social consciousness reflects one's being within the society. The problem is not one of acquiring correct ideas so as to forge correct policies, but one of uniting in action in defence of the rights of all. By activating the human factor/social consciousness, the problems the people are facing can be provided with a solution.

Note

1. "The Private Sector Can't Pay for Everything," Noam Scheiber, New York Times, October 9, 2020.