Published on Portside (https://portside.org/)
It Didn’t Have to
Be Like This
Stephanie
Luce
March
27, 2020
Labor
Notes
We have been
forced to choose between two terrible options:
- 1. Lock ourselves down to prevent the spread of the
virus, resulting in massive job loss—while many vulnerable
workers are still forced to work in unsafe conditions, or
2. Maintain
some business as usual, stemming the economic impact but putting tens
of millions of people at risk.
It didn’t have to
be like this.
We could not have
prevented the virus itself, nor the resulting loss of life altogether. But
imagine if:
- Instead
of cutting public health budgets and access to health care for decades, we
had expanded it by enacting a single-payer health care system—an improved
Medicare for All.
- We
had community health centers that did low-cost preventive care, giving
people the education and resources to stay healthy to begin with and
making a much smaller share of the population at risk for dangerous
disease.
- We
had paid sick days for all workers so they didn’t have to come to work
when they had symptoms.
- We
had strong unions, high minimum wages, and good benefits, so very few
people were poor. Workers would not feel so desperate to work even when
sick or in danger, and they could afford basic necessities to keep them
healthier year-round.
- We
had a public health philosophy of “an injury to one is an injury to all.”
Governments would be ready to step in with testing programs, resources for
people in quarantine, and fair access for all to treatment and vaccines.
- We
taxed the rich and corporations and used that money for the public good
and building a strong economy. Our economy would be better equipped to
sustain shocks.
- We
valued science and scientists, and invested in their research on issues
for the public good.
- We
valued international connections and relationships, encouraging
cooperation and collaboration on research, education, and treatment across
borders, rather than demonizing or punishing entire nations.
Any society is
vulnerable to a host of threats, from disease to climate change and natural
disasters. The challenge is how to build the foundation and infrastructure that
can prevent the worst outcomes and better withstand the catastrophes when they
come.
SO NOW WHAT?
It is too late to
go back and make different choices, but we still have a choice in how to move
forward.
We can continue on
the same path: privatize more of the health care system; bail out the rich, the
banks, and the corporations; make drugs and vaccines available only to the
highest bidder. We can blame China and escalate our trade war. We can continue
sanctions on Iran and contribute to high rates of illness and death there. We
can act as if diseases and treatment follow borders.
Or we can move
quickly to ease the burden and rebuild, and be prepared for the next pandemic
and the climate crisis which is sure to come:
- Improved
Medicare for All so that everyone has affordable health care.
- Guaranteed
payment for all health care during the crisis.
- Personal
protective equipment for health care workers and all those called into
service work during the crisis.
- A
Basic Income Grant that gives everyone $2,000 a month for the duration of
the crisis.
- A
federal jobs program. Follow Europe’s lead and require employers to keep
workers on payroll throughout the crisis, with subsidies for doing so. Use
stimulus money to directly hire frontline workers needed to provide care,
such as retired health care workers. As soon as the danger is passed, put
people back to work providing health care, improving public transit,
caretaking for seniors, and more.
- A Green
New Deal to invest in our infrastructure and transition to renewable
energy.
- Put
vital industries under public control so that we have the essential
supplies needed to sustain humanity and so that production is driven by
human need rather than profit.
HOW WILL WE PAY
FOR THIS?
Some will argue
that we cannot afford these programs. A simple answer is that we can’t afford
not to.
But getting into
specifics: Countries have often been forced to implement bold policies during a
crisis, whether the Great Depression of the 1930s, wartime, or coming out of
war. It was after World War II that many other countries established their
national health care systems and their generous safety net programs, on the
understanding that any society is only as strong as its weakest member and that
collective programs are good for the economy.
The federal
government has the ability to take on public debt to pay for big programs. This
happened in 2008 when the government came up with $891 billion to bail out the
financial system, with almost no strings attached. This is basically an
investment in the future: borrowing money from the future to pay for necessary
steps now. The economist JW Mason makes a strong case for funding the
Green New Deal this way.
There are also
lots of taxes we could pass:
- A
wealth tax on the top 1%
- A
tax on Wall Street speculation
- Require
those with incomes over $250,000 a year (the wealthiest 1.8%) to pay the
same rate into Social Security as working families
- A
carbon tax
- A
tax on corporations that pay the CEO more than 50 times the average
worker's pay
- And
cut military spending.
ANOTHER PATH IS
POSSIBLE
Other countries
are showing that there are better ways to address this health and economic
crisis. We do not have to choose between saving people and saving jobs. We can
pay people to stay home and we can protect people who are working on the front
lines. If we demand it, we can build an economy centered on human need rather
than corporate profit.
Stephanie Luce is
a professor at the School for Labor and Urban Studies, City University of New
York, and a member of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY/AFT.
Since 1979, Labor
Notes has been the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back
in the labor movement.
Donations can be sent
to the 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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