For a moment, let’s calmly look around us. What values do we see reflected in the response to the pandemic? My intention here is not “virtue signaling” or moral judgement. This is a question about where civilization is headed, and what it means to us.
It is quite clear that many states in the US are re-opening too soon:
And this is not a matter of state or local choice, as we see when a major jurisdiction refuses to re-open. Clearly the might of the Department of Justice will be used to compel re-opening:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/politics/doj-la-warn-stay-at-home/index.html
There is absolutely no doubt that re-opening this soon will result in needless deaths, and whether it’s 150 deaths or 150,000 doesn’t matter—either to Trump or to us as socialists and citizens. For Trump the exact number is meaningless, because human life is meaningless to him, and to us the needless death of a single individual is enough to reject the entire course of action.
I have written that the basis of socialism is the intuition that human life is sacred. The current capitalist system does not regard human life as sacred, and in fact it sees little practical value in saving American lives—hence the lack of testing and contact tracing.
The immediate plan of billionaire capitalism is to retain its grip on power. This means Trump must be re-elected and the Republicans must hold the Senate. For Trump to be re-elected, the economy must recover somewhat before Election Day. Therefore the stay-at-home orders must be lifted—however many lives it costs—even though the economy was destroyed by the coronavirus, not by the resulting lockdowns.
Republicans have cited the example of Sweden as their model of an economy untroubled by stay-at-home orders. Here’s what’s wrong with that idea:
Coronavirus Deaths and Change in GDP, Northern Europe
| Country | Deaths from Covid-19
(5-23-20) |
Deaths per 100,000 people
(5-23-20) |
Projected change in GDP 2020
(IMF) |
| Sweden | 3,992 | 38.6 | -6.8% |
| Norway | 235 | 4.4 | -6.3% |
| Finland | 306 | 5.5 | -6% |
| Denmark | 561 | 9.6 | -6.5% |
| Germany | 8,261 | 9.9 | -6.5% |
Sweden’s policies have been a public health disaster without any economic benefit. The contrast with Germany, a much more densely populated country, is particularly notable. It appears that at least 3,000 Swedes have died needlessly in this pandemic—so far.
There are other estimates of Sweden’s economic performance in 2020—in one Riksbank scenario, the Swedish economy will shrink by 9.1% in 2020. I used the IMF estimates to make the comparisons between countries consistent.
For deaths per country:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
For IMF estimates of 2020 GDP:
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2020/01/weodata/index.aspx
For Riksbank estimates:
For population numbers:
So, if Sweden is killing off its citizens at 9 times the rate of its closest neighbor, Norway, and 4 times the rate of Germany and Denmark, for no economic benefit whatsoever, then why do we want to emulate Sweden?
This makes no sense whatsoever unless we recognize Billionaire Capitalism as a political movement of nearly unlimited ruthlessness. Will Americans go back to work? Will they “shop until they drop” — or at least until they have trouble breathing? Will they go on vacations, book a cruise? If they do, that might create enough of an economic bounce to put Trump over the top in November—with lots of help from the Russian trolls and Fox News, of course. Americans might well refuse to go along, but Trump and his advisers figure, what do we have to lose?
All we have to lose are thousands and thousands of lives. And a brutal second wave that could kill another two hundred thousand or so and wreck the economy for 2021, but that might be after the election, so no worries.
The horror of this situation cannot be emphasized by mere prose. The most powerful political force in our civilization—Billionaire Capitalism—is sacrificing lives on a massive scale to retain power.
When you realize that the system does not care whether you live or die, and it doesn’t care whether anyone you love lives or dies, you become profoundly alienated. You are no longer a citizen—you’re a horse caught in a burning barn. In this crisis, Billionaire Capitalism is no longer able to hide its complete disregard for human life. It’s the burning barn.
When the people absorb this lesson, then the political and social situation will become highly unstable. In truth, it was always unstable, or at least unsustainable, but now we have nothing left. I prefer change that comes through debate and elections, and I also prefer barns not to catch fire with horses inside. But the forces of change have their own laws, and our suffering will continue.
If this system isn’t changed, our suffering over the next decades will be incalculable; but changing this system will also bring suffering. “Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it,” as Marlowe wrote in Doctor Faustus.
Identity politics is irrelevant here. If your life has been written off by the political system, any incidental dehumanization you suffer—whether it’s mansplaining or microaggressions—is hardly worth mentioning. You are possibly going to die to preserve the power and wealth of the powerful and wealthy—is it any wonder you will be mocked by them, as well?
Our part as civilized men and women is to provide a positive vision, an alternative. Our historical position is similar to that of the sages of the Enlightenment, struggling against the darkness.
Let’s take Diderot, who was denied paper and ink during his imprisonment, as our example:
Diderot had been permitted to retain one book that he had in his possession at the time of his arrest, Paradise Lost, which he read during his incarceration. He wrote notes and annotations on the book, using a toothpick as a pen, and ink that he made by scraping slate from the walls and mixing it with wine.[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Diderot
By the time Diderot was released, the poem was embroidered on every page with his notes. No one has read Paradise Lost the way Diderot read it.
With just a drop of Diderot’s prison ink, we may yet change the world.
Human life is sacred—-let’s start with that.
The Socialist Investor 