No doubt about it, capitalism makes you sick—both figuratively and literally. The coronavirus pandemic is only the latest assault on our health.
All over the world factories are shutting down, like the auto factories in the US and Germany. But not Boeing. Boeing management has been spending their time securing a $60 billion bailout. They vow to muster all available resources, including our taxpayer money, to keep production going. “And profits flowing,” add workers on the factory floor.
For weeks, angry Boeing workers have demanded basic personal protection equipment (PPE) and disinfecting wipes or solutions, etc. They still haven’t got them. Many are afraid they will bring COVID-19 home to vulnerable relatives.
This week workers have had enough. They are now demanding that the factories shut down.
And what are we Boeing workers risking our lives (and the lives of everyone around us) for?
The company wants us to start again making the MAX even before they are certified. They will be added to those planes already in the parking lots. Daily, airlines around the world are adding thousands to the fleets idled in the lots.
Away With All Pests
Communists have a strong record of fighting and defeating disease. One of the best-known cases is the Chinese campaign against schistosomiasis (bilharzia).
In the mid-fifties there were no drugs available, so the Chinese Communist party decided to exterminate the snails that transmit the disease. This involved mobilizing 1.5 million people to kill the snails manually. Although the campaign was organized by socialists, it was based on communist principles and was a success.
Of course, communism won’t abolish viruses, but communism will do a better job of protecting us against them. In the US the first case of COVID-19 appeared in January. Two months later there are still shortages of test kits, masks and ventilators. And then there’s countries like Brazil, where there is basically no healthcare infrastructure.
The bosses cannot mobilize the masses. Instead they mobilize their state (government, police, civil servants, medical, educational, and corporate bureaucracies). This mobilized state then coerces the masses into whatever tactic the bosses choose. In France, for example, 100,000 cops are patrolling the streets asking people where they are going.
The suppression strategy also supresses demand, produces large scale unemployment, and leads to thousands of businesses going bankrupt. The world economy is already experiencing massive debt and excess capacity (overproduction). Suppression could trigger a major crisis. Millions could lose jobs and be exposed to hunger and homelessness. And on top of that the major imperialist powers are each trying to use the crisis to gain an advantage in their ceaseless rivalry.
Communism Will Eradicate Diseases
Under communism we’ll do better. There will be no state as we know it. Instead the workers will be mobilized under the leadership of a communist party (ICWP). Food, shelter, and other necessities will be collectively produced and distributed free according to need; there will be no money.
For example, Boeing workers could help make the tens of thousands of ventilators needed in this emergency. The industrial 3-D printer and metal-forming machines needed are already in the plants. There will be no patents to get in our way. Knowledge will readily be shared when the goal is meeting our collective need, not profit for individual companies.
Fighting the coronavirus would still involve big disruptions, but not living on the street and going hungry. People will be willing to make the needed sacrifices if they know that society has their backs.
The communist approach has other big advantages. Under communism workers will be much healthier. First and foremost, they will all have good food and enough of it. They will live in decent housing and have sanitation and clean water (about half the world’s population doesn’t have access to the latter). They will have a functioning healthcare infrastructure with universal access.
And they will no longer be exposed to the many dangers of day- to-day capitalism: workplace stress, sedentary lifestyle, drug addiction, deaths of despair, racist police terrorism, other infectious diseases and of course racism, sexism, xenophobia and war.
There is no use hoping that the bosses will adopt a communist strategy. It only works in a communist society and that is possible only through communist revolution. To achieve communism and suppress all the evils of capitalism we need a mass communist party. This can only happen if you join ICWP and help us eliminate the bosses and their system—the real source of all our problems.
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