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This crisis has mostly been a massive demonstration of how capitalism undermines society's ability to prevent and cope with disasters. We're seeing individual p

This crisis has mostly been a massive demonstration of how capitalism undermines society's ability to prevent and cope with disasters. We're seeing individual people show their best while profit motive leads to people sabotaging others' hope of success. A few examples: * A particular politician prioritizing low numbers (to look good) over actual infection reduction * A particular government not issuing orders for needed equipment - we still haven't placed orders and handed money to for-profit ventilator manufacturers, so they can't afford to just manufacture more * A particular government failing to fund ongoing mask manufacturing to guarantee a stockpile in advance for pandemics despite being advised to do so, as a result manufacturers had to cut staff and lower capacity * For-profit hospitals being on the verge of running out of money due to treatment for uninsured patients not being funded * Governments having to contemplate sending out massive checks to citizens and/or provide financial assistance in exchange for employers not laying off all their staff * Price gouging for emergency essentials like masks and hand sanitizer, forcing local governments and marketplaces to act aggressively to punish it * Government officials delaying necessary containment measures like closing beaches or banning gatherings as an attempt to preserve local businesses at the expense of public health * Cruise ships... just cruise ships in general. The idea that they are still operational as floating incubators for hundreds of new cases is just obscene. * COVID-19 spreading more rapidly among the elderly in WA because care home workers have to work multiple jobs to pay rent, resulting in them taking it between care homes Other less-capitalist nations are still struggling with COVID-19 but capitalist responses to it have so far been wildly insufficient.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
It will be also a big blow for individual freedoms worldwide. When those of us who survive will look back at it, they won't be able to ignore the fact that sending police to beat up people at a few mass gathering on beaches and streets, and then putting military out to enforce quarantine measures, would result in exponentially less loss of life and damage to the economy.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  Yeah, that is a very good point. The emergency reactions to societal failure (not entirely due to capitalism, but in some cases due to capitalism) are by nature very authoritarian, which leads to the erosion of normal governance. My home country is already putting in place emergency measures that are likely to last until after the emergency is over and are conveniently very useful for maintaining a grip on power. We've been looking at deploying the military too, which at the very least is going to increase tensions and potentially lead to unrest. I mourn the potential damage to democracy almost as much as I mourn the lives lost because democracy being severely damaged by this incident will hurt future generations.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    I meant something a tad different. Survivors will look back at how badly the West handled the pandemic and vote authoritarians in willingly. And it will be fully justified at that moment. The danger being, of course, that authoritarianism is hard to root out and gets worse over time. Because it will be hard to deny that a faster, stronger reaction and a few beatings here and there would've spared a lot of future suffering and loss of life. You won't be able to say with a straight face that letting idiots do their idiocy is a small price to pay for freedom. To be clear: I don't like the authoritarian future I predict. But I would love to see military on the streets right fucking now, instead of reading every single day a story about some idiot breaking quarantine to run some errands, and in process shutting down a store, a clinic or a hospital ward.
- maigret 7y ago
  I don’t think so. People are all agreeing on that based on good judgment. As someone who accepts the current restrictions, there’s no way I’ll accept some random other abuse afterwards. I reckon our society will be in for majors discussion in who takes the rewards and who is critically important.
travisoneill1 7y ago
Which non-capitalist countries have handled it better?
- lucian1900 7y ago
  China, Vietnam, Cuba.
  - rstuart4133 7y ago
    China: yes. Vietnam: it's gone exponential, so no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_V... Cuba: too early to tell. South Korea: looks to be under control, despite having patient 31 who is the worst super spreader of covid-19 on the planet. They are a capitalist economy. Taiwan: a capitalist country that looked to have it under control early (like Vietnam) but it now seems to have escaped and gone exponential. So far I'd say whether a country has got it under control depended on a whether a few key individuals in power decided to enact expensive decisive and control measures immediately. (Of course in hindsight they weren't expensive compared to what was to come, but it took a lot of balls to do it nonetheless.) The rest of us (including the USA) had to wait until most of civil society understood the risk and took action. I think that's happening on a large scale in every democratic capitalist nation now. Even if you have a Trump in power, the forces that unleashes are irresistible - everyone moves as a group to protect themselves. A hallmark of capitalist economies is they are very good at self organising. Those same forces aren't so irresistible in a non-capitalist non-democratic country, and they aren't so practised at self organisation. We now have a benchmark for how fast that happens in the internet age. Apparently in one month you can go from zero to the bulk of population on the same page, providing the facts are reasonably clear. (The highly infectious nature of SARS-Cov-2 was pretty clear from the start. The implications of what that meant were also clear to those who understood the math - but most had to learn and that takes time.) I find that speed kinda amazing, and it's a blessing bestowed on us by the Internet.
elhudy 7y ago
Some of these bullets are a result of shortcomings with democracy not capitalism (or even capitalism by extension of democracy). Whether it's worth giving up democracy in attempt to address these shortcomings, I'm not so sure; seems that would typify a hyperfocus on the bad times.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

It will be also a big blow for individual freedoms worldwide. When those of us who survive will look back at it, they won't be able to ignore the fact that sending police to beat up people at a few mass gathering on beaches and streets, and then putting military out to enforce quarantine measures, would result in exponentially less loss of life and damage to the economy.

kevingadd 7y ago
Yeah, that is a very good point. The emergency reactions to societal failure (not entirely due to capitalism, but in some cases due to capitalism) are by nature very authoritarian, which leads to the erosion of normal governance. My home country is already putting in place emergency measures that are likely to last until after the emergency is over and are conveniently very useful for maintaining a grip on power. We've been looking at deploying the military too, which at the very least is going to increase tensions and potentially lead to unrest. I mourn the potential damage to democracy almost as much as I mourn the lives lost because democracy being severely damaged by this incident will hurt future generations.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I meant something a tad different. Survivors will look back at how badly the West handled the pandemic and vote authoritarians in willingly. And it will be fully justified at that moment. The danger being, of course, that authoritarianism is hard to root out and gets worse over time. Because it will be hard to deny that a faster, stronger reaction and a few beatings here and there would've spared a lot of future suffering and loss of life. You won't be able to say with a straight face that letting idiots do their idiocy is a small price to pay for freedom. To be clear: I don't like the authoritarian future I predict. But I would love to see military on the streets right fucking now, instead of reading every single day a story about some idiot breaking quarantine to run some errands, and in process shutting down a store, a clinic or a hospital ward.
maigret 7y ago
I don’t think so. People are all agreeing on that based on good judgment. As someone who accepts the current restrictions, there’s no way I’ll accept some random other abuse afterwards. I reckon our society will be in for majors discussion in who takes the rewards and who is critically important.

travisoneill1 7y ago

Which non-capitalist countries have handled it better?

lucian1900 7y ago
China, Vietnam, Cuba.
- rstuart4133 7y ago
  China: yes. Vietnam: it's gone exponential, so no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_V... Cuba: too early to tell. South Korea: looks to be under control, despite having patient 31 who is the worst super spreader of covid-19 on the planet. They are a capitalist economy. Taiwan: a capitalist country that looked to have it under control early (like Vietnam) but it now seems to have escaped and gone exponential. So far I'd say whether a country has got it under control depended on a whether a few key individuals in power decided to enact expensive decisive and control measures immediately. (Of course in hindsight they weren't expensive compared to what was to come, but it took a lot of balls to do it nonetheless.) The rest of us (including the USA) had to wait until most of civil society understood the risk and took action. I think that's happening on a large scale in every democratic capitalist nation now. Even if you have a Trump in power, the forces that unleashes are irresistible - everyone moves as a group to protect themselves. A hallmark of capitalist economies is they are very good at self organising. Those same forces aren't so irresistible in a non-capitalist non-democratic country, and they aren't so practised at self organisation. We now have a benchmark for how fast that happens in the internet age. Apparently in one month you can go from zero to the bulk of population on the same page, providing the facts are reasonably clear. (The highly infectious nature of SARS-Cov-2 was pretty clear from the start. The implications of what that meant were also clear to those who understood the math - but most had to learn and that takes time.) I find that speed kinda amazing, and it's a blessing bestowed on us by the Internet.

elhudy 7y ago

Some of these bullets are a result of shortcomings with democracy not capitalism (or even capitalism by extension of democracy). Whether it's worth giving up democracy in attempt to address these shortcomings, I'm not so sure; seems that would typify a hyperfocus on the bad times.