Richard Wolff: Capitalism is the reason COVID-19 is ravaging America
'There is a unique incapacity of the capitalist system
— by which I mean, a system of private enterprises owned and operated by
shareholders, families, individuals producing for a profit and the ordering
about of the majority of people involved in every enterprise or the employees —
that system is uniquely incapable of securing public health," Wolff told
Salon. "And since public health is a basic demand, a need of human
communities, this represents a profound disqualification of capitalism. And to
spell it out just briefly: it is not profitable for a private, profit-driven
competitive capitalist to produce masks by the millions, or gloves, or
ventilators, or hospital beds, or all the rest of them...'
Interview with Dr. Richard D. Wolff, whose new book "The Sickness is the System" explores capitalism's flaws... As I've written before, the novel coronavirus pandemic has exposed many of the structural weaknesses in capitalism. In order to rationalize the free market ideology that undergirds capitalist systems, capitalists must ignore inconvenient scientific facts (whether about the pandemic or issues like global warming and pollution) and cut corners when trying to help those stricken with misfortune. Even worse, capitalism requires constant consumption in order to maintain prosperity; if a wrench is thrown into the gears of perpetual growth, the entire economy grinds to a halt, as we have seen since the economic shutdowns began in March.
George Lakey on Capitalism, public health and the Nordic model
These arguments, and many others like them, are central to
Dr. Richard D. Wolff's new book, "The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save
Us from Pandemics or Itself." In a series of well-researched essays
outlined with impeccable logic, the professor emeritus of economics at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst analyzes the events of the last seven
months — what one might deem the "COVID-19 era" — and explains how
the horrors of 2020 are primarily caused by the social, political and economic
status quo. His book tackles a number of issues, including how the economy
crashed not because of a virus but because capitalism is incapable of coping
with epidemics, how America's healthcare system is corrupt, and how income
inequality caused immense suffering long before the pandemic and is propped up
by economic myths…
I Am a Mad Scientist. By Kate Marvel
JOSH DZIEZA - Save the Honeybee, Sterilize the Earth
We'll find a treatment for coronavirus – but drug companies will decide
who gets it
George Lakey on Capitalism, public health and the Nordic model
10 Theses on the Proliferation of Egocrats (1977)
'We did it to ourselves': scientist says intrusion into nature led to
pandemic
The champions of
capitalism are refusing to admit their ideology has failed
America has no real
public health system – coronavirus has a clear run
The US is losing
its superpower status and it might not recover / Trump’s Slow-Motion 9/11
Delilah Friedler:
Capitalism Is America’s Religion. The Virus Makes That Clear
American capitalism
has dropped the mask — and its face is cruel and selfish
