History,
Economic Justice, and COVID-19
After an
era of right-wing ascendance—and staring at the carnage of this ongoing
pandemic—we must make sure the pendulum swings swiftly toward a
more equitable future and a better society for all.
commondreams.org
Matt
Hart, beverage director at Harvard Gardens, helps to distribute bagged lunches
to Massachusetts General Hospital employees in Boston on April 1, 2020. (Photo:
Erin Clark/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)
Catastrophes,
both human-caused and natural, have brought Americans together across
race, class and geography to demand a better world. Throughout the twentieth
century, we faced crises of economics, public health, the environment,
race and labor. Resistance came from eastern and mid-western cities,
Appalachian hollows, southern towns, and the Pacific coast.
The
responses were rarely immediate and never perfect. But as we face
down the public health and economic devastation
of COVID-19, we should learn from history and make deeply
transformative policy choices so that we
emerge from this tragedy as a more
thoughtful, equitable nation—one better prepared to respond
collectively to threats of all kinds.
We’ve
done this before when we as a country had far fewer
resources than we do today.
At
the start of the twentieth century, Upton Sinclair’s 1905 novel, The
Jungle, exposed careless use of toxic
chemicals, gruesome workplace deaths and abuse of child
labor, among other horrors in Chicago's meatpacking
industry. The book spawned the following year’s Pure Food
and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, and worked its
way into the American psyche as a stark reminder of corporate abuse. Over
the next several decades, Sinclair’s original goals of worker
solidarity also grew strength as packinghouse workers organized into
multi-racial unions that advanced equity in wages and led on civil
rights.
About
twenty years later, the Great Depression generated resistance and activism from
poor people, workers, and the many Americans, Black and white, whose jobs and
businesses it destroyed. This propelled President Franklin Roosevelt and other
policymakers to create massive public works in the short term. It also
fundamentally and permanently transformed our economy and society, establishing
Social Security and unemployment insurance, forbidding child labor, creating a
minimum wage, permitting and promoting union organizing, and more. Scholars
rightly criticize the New Deal for excluding or neglecting Black workers by
leaving agricultural and domestic jobs out of many of the protections and
benefits. But Black workers benefited in many other ways from these policies, and today, despite
continued deep racial inequality throughout society, New Deal-era policies help
people of all races and ethnicities. This is, in turn, largely
because civil rights activists worked for decades—in the face of beatings,
lynching and other brutality—to resist Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation
in the South. The broad movement for civil rights eventually secured the 1957
and 1964 Civil Rights Acts and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, each of which helped
to secure a more racially just society, and all of which require our continued
vigilance to protect.
By
the end of the industrial boom of the 1950s and '60s, manufacturers
and others used Cleveland's Cuyahoga River and other waterways as dumping
grounds for industrial waste, sewage, and chemicals.
This destroyed fish and wildlife, contaminated groundwater,
and harmed health, particularly of working
class and poor city residents, both Black and
white. The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire was one of
many times the river burned, but the public, newly educated by Rachel
Carson's Silent Spring and by Union Oil's
massive California oil spill the same year, was ready this
time to stand up for clean water. Environmental activists and others used the
1969 fire to force action, contributing both to Nixon agreeing
to establish the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and
to Congress overriding Nixon’s veto
to pass the 1972 Clean Water Act.
"What
we need now is a more fundamental transformation that addresses fissures that
were there before this virus hit and that are making this virus hit
harder."
The
accomplishments of the last century, often forged in struggle or
hardship, have not all survived recent decades. Right-wing
embrace of both corporate power and racial animosity undermine
these victories. Worker rights, food safety, cross-racial labor
solidarity, occupational health, clean water and civil
rights are not now and never have been as strong as they
should be. And many American problems were confronted reluctantly or
not at all—we stand out among wealthy nations for our high rates
of gun violence, pollution, carbon emissions, incarceration,
police brutality, poverty and inequality.
But
as we now confront a tragedy killing Americans from coast to
coast, already taking a deep toll in lives and
economic well-being, we are also—collectively—wealthier, more
diverse, and more educated. We have history to inform
us. And after an era of right-wing ascendance, the pendulum is poised
to swing toward justice and equity.
What we need
now is a more fundamental transformation that addresses fissures that
were there before this virus hit and that are making this virus hit
harder.
Compensation,
health insurance, retirement security and more are almost entirely tied to
remaining employed in the US. In just the first weeks of
this downturn, 16 million
Americans lost jobs, paychecks, health insurance,
and the ability to ever retire. The absurdity of facing a
public health crisis while ripping away people's insurance coverage
is palpable. We need a new social contract where childcare,
health care and retirement security are rights for everyone,
regardless of employment status. Black and Latino workers who've often
been less protected by past safety nets—and who are now
disproportionately farming our produce, stocking our store
shelves, and delivering our essentials—must be at the forefront of
crafting and controlling the solutions.
Most
fundamentally, we raise too little revenue, leaving us unable to deal with
human and environmental needs in regular times, let alone in a
pandemic. Administrations of both parties have kept public
spending far below that of other advanced nations for decades. Over
the past two decades, policymakers slashed revenue by more
than $5 trillion, sending two-thirds of
the windfall to the richest 20 percent of taxpayers. The Trump
administration and the Republican Congress hammered revenue at our
wealthiest moment, increasing the deficit even before the COVID-19 crisis
began. The same lawmakers then used the constrained revenue
as an excuse to slash public resources that could help us now,
including pandemic preparedness and health care. We discarded much
of the intellectual, scientific, care-providing, and infrastructure
capacity that we need to survive COVID-19.
Starting
now, we must make different choices.
"Going
forward, corporate voices cannot continue to steer. Instead, families,
communities and working individuals have to lead our policymaking so it better
helps people struggling now." While other wealthy democracies on
average devote a little more than a third of their economy to public needs, the
U.S. sends roughly a quarter in this direction. Raising more revenue is
a necessity in a country with such an underfunded public sector. To do
this, we should tax income from wealth as much as income from work, tax the
wealth of the very rich as much as middle-class assets that are tied
up in family homes, and tax corporate profits the same way regardless
of what accounting gimmicks companies use to offshore
earnings. This is how we’ll raise revenue and build an economy
that Americans can believe in again.
That revenue can
then be directed to deep, permanent investments in science, health,
caregiving, disaster preparedness, green infrastructure and other imperatives
of a new century with new threats, provided with the same urgency that we’ve
used to fund wars and an always-bloated military.
The
March relief bill, a tremendous feat passed with the necessary urgency,
provided too much corporate aid in ways we will surely regret, bailing out
industries that had avoided taxes when their profits were
flush. The unemployment expansions were strong by American
standards, but our system is underequipped
to deliver them. The federal government must go beyond
the initial $150 billion in state and local fiscal aid—imperative,
but far less than what’s needed. Our elected officials have to listen
to we the people and change their approach. Going
forward, corporate voices cannot continue to steer.
Instead, families, communities and working individuals have
to lead our policymaking so it better helps people struggling
now.
And
when a vaccine is in place and life resumes, it must be a new and
better life, where Americans of all races and from all
geographies have economic and job
security, and where far more of us are employed in
service of our collective needs—caring for children and others who need care,
greening our economy, studying and reporting on scientific and
political problems, anticipating upcoming threats, and restoring a public
sector as a vehicle to employ and serve the public.
We
are this country. Starting now, it has to work for all of us.
Amy
Hanauer joined ITEP in 2020, bringing nearly 30 years of experience working to
create economic policy that advances social justice. As executive director of
both ITEP and Citizens for Tax Justice, Amy provides vision and leadership to
promote fair and equitable state and national tax policy.
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Donations can be sent
to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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