The Financial Oligarchy and the Coronavirus Pandemic

Reopening the Economy

The ruling elite and their media are full of talk of reopening the economy. Most of the chatter centres on how to put workers back to work producing, transporting and circulating the goods and services the people and society need for their existence.

Of course, the talk does not include the opinions, views and concerns of those who do the work. Absent as well is any serious discussion of what "closed the economy" in the first place. The pandemic is not a reason to "close the economy." What structurally or fundamentally is wrong with the way the economy is organized that leaves it so vulnerable, fragile and subject to regular broad economic crises and the periodic collapse of specific sectors, such as energy? This lack of serious investigation and discussion of the root cause of crises and shutdowns means that the talk to reopen is flawed and will merely repeat or reassert the original conditions for the crisis and closure without solving any of the real problems and contradictions that exist.

Reopening without bringing into being a new beginning that takes into account the causes of the shutdown is bound to fail and inevitably lead to yet another crisis. This happened after the serious economic crisis in 2008 when no fundamental change was initiated because no serious investigation and discussion took place as to why the crisis happened resulting in no positive action taking place to initiate a new direction.

As in 2008, when the working people and small and medium-sized businesses were forced to bear the burden of the crisis, such is the case today. Back then, governments at all levels bailed out the biggest companies facing collapse; many consequently became even bigger, with those in control and ownership becoming even richer and more powerful. The refusal to investigate, discuss and take action to deal with the causes of the economic crisis in 2008 created the conditions for an even worse crisis in 2020.

In the current crisis, the situation is worse for the working class because workers are being told to go back to work as if no pandemic danger exists. Even in the midst of the hurricane, so to speak, workers in virus hot spots such as retail, health care, education, transit and agribusiness with few exceptions have been ordered to work without any serious attention paid to their well-being and safety and that of the people they serve and the communities where they live. A number of cartel politicians are even blathering in the media that the stipend certain workers are receiving should be discontinued because it deprives them of the incentive to work, as if they have a cushion to raise their concerns about health and safety and possibly only return to work with their consent when their fears have been allayed. Meanwhile, the federal government is increasing the wages of those it defines as essential workers for the pandemic period only, hoping that after the emergency everything will "return to normal." 

Meanwhile, public funds are being doled out right and left to the rich and their private enterprises as if there is no tomorrow or accounting for such corruption, because for the ruling elite a world without the privilege and control of the financial oligarchy is too horrible to imagine. The ruling elite are determined to continue their lives of wealth, power, privilege and control and they want the working class to agree and even work to make it so.

They are directing the reopening as if the crisis and shutdown were an act of god or the fault of someone else or some other country against which war may be necessary to make them pay, and not a consequence of their refusal to bring the political and economic forms, institutions and social relations into conformity with modern socialized industrial mass production.

The ruling elite refuses to allow any official investigation and discussion as to the causes of the economic crises that regularly occur, and their attendant war preparations to attack others and the endless actual wars, sanctions and blockades now compounded by a pandemic and economic crisis that are bringing misery and possible starvation to millions worldwide. The elite stands in the way of change and bleats, "just get back to work" and "trust us."

The modern world and socialized economy are caught in the old political and economic forms and social relations from the past that are in fundamental contradiction with a completely socialized economy of industrial mass production that needs to be brought under control by those who do the work, through cooperation, science, planning and a new aim to serve the people and society and to humanize the social and natural environment. The working peoples' opposition to the old aim of private profit and its hostile competition and violent infighting amongst factions of the rich will give way to the New. The striving of the working class for a new direction, devised, acted upon and brought into being by the people, will replace the striving of the rich for greater and greater wealth and power at the expense of the people.

The refusal of the official cartel politicians in power, the media and those in control of the economy to take the crisis seriously is yet another reason why the working class must take matters into its own hands. An investigation, discussion and exchange of views on why these regular crises occur will favour the workers, and their allies from other affected social strata, and embolden them to imagine an alternative. It will help them to build organizations and forms that allow new content to take shape and gather a large following. They can mobilize their collective strength and social consciousness into an opposition force that becomes unstoppable and that cannot be diverted with the idle chatter of the rich. Official disinformation seeks to divert attention in such a manner that the ruling elite and their outdated economic and political system prevail. Far from it, they must be held to account for the failures and crises by making sure a new authority, affirmed by the working people, brings into being modern arrangements that are consistent with the conditions today. 

The necessity for a new direction stares society in the face. The time is now to forge a new direction and bring it into being.

This article was published in

Volume 50 Number 16 - May 9, 2020

Article Link:
The Financial Oligarchy and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Reopening the Economy

    

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