[D66] How many must die for Wall Street?

[Antid Oto]

wsws.org:

How many must die for Wall Street?
26 March 2020

Deaths from the global coronavirus pandemic soared past 21,000 on 
Wednesday, continuing on an exponential trajectory. In the United 
States, at least 247 new deaths were recorded, and the number of new 
cases grew by over 13,000.

Every day, more than 2,000 people are dying around the world. “It took 
67 days from the first reported case to reach 100,000 cases, 11 days for 
the second 100,000 cases, and just four days for the third 100,000 
cases,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the 
World Health Organization.

Within a matter of days, the United States will have more cases of 
COVID-19 than any other country, including China and Italy, the initial 
epicenters of the disease. In New York, lines of ill people snake around 
city blocks, while a makeshift morgue is being constructed outside of 
New York’s Bellevue Hospital. In other New York City hospitals, 
refrigerated trucks are being used to store bodies, in conditions 
doctors called “apocalyptic.”

Experts have repeatedly warned that the United States is only at the 
beginning of its outbreak, and that cases will continue to soar. But 
already hospitals throughout the country—including those far away from 
the main centers of infection, such as the Beaumont and Henry Ford 
Health systems in Detroit—are filled to capacity.

Despite widespread claims that the pandemic only afflicts the elderly, 
the disease has proven dangerous to broad sections of society, with 38 
percent of people hospitalized in the US been between the ages of 20 and 54.

Meanwhile, despite the pleas of health experts, many workplaces 
throughout the country remain open. It is becoming increasingly clear 
that the disease is rapidly spreading in American workplaces, many of 
which do not have even the most basic safety measures in place to 
protect workers.

Two US Fiat Chrysler workers, including a worker at the Sterling Heights 
Assembly Plant north of Detroit and the Kokomo Transmission Plant in 
Indiana, have died after becoming infected with COVID-19.

Nine workers in Amazon warehouses have tested positive for the virus. 
But despite the mounting toll, Amazon has made clear that it will 
neither shut down warehouses nor provide warehouse workers and delivery 
drivers with necessary protective equipment.

Even as the pandemic gathers strength, the Trump administration is 
escalating its campaign for a prompt return to work. Trump, disregarding 
the warnings of his own health experts, has called for America to be 
“open for business” by Easter, demanding to see “packed churches all 
over our country.”

In perhaps the most deranged expression of the outlook shared by Trump, 
the far-right Federalist online magazine, whose content Trump has 
repeatedly promoted on Twitter, published an article urging its readers 
to deliberately infect themselves and their children with the virus in 
order to generate “herd immunity.”

But the denial of the dangers posed by COVID-19 and the urge that lives 
be sacrificed for the sake of the “economy” extends far beyond Trump and 
his supporters in the United States.

Trump’s points were echoed by his political ally and far-right ideologue 
Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, who declared, “The people will 
soon see that they were tricked by these governors and by the large part 
of the media when it comes to coronavirus.” He called the disease the 
“little flu.”

In Germany, the daily Handelsblatt ran a prominent interview with hedge 
fund manager Alexander Dibelius, who declared that the “collective 
shutdown of the economy” is “more frightening than this viral infection.”

These demands echoed similar statements among American oligarchs, 
including former Goldman Sachs executives Lloyd Blankfein and Gary Cohn. 
Cohn declared that it was time “to start discussing the need for a date 
when the economy can turn back on.”

Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevic, referring to “healthy workers below 
about 55,” stated, “We’ll gradually bring those people back and see what 
happens. Some of them will get sick, some may even die, I don’t know.”

Billionaire Tom Golisano, “smoking a Padron cigar on his patio in 
Florida,” complained to Bloomberg News, “The damages of keeping the 
economy closed as it is could be worse than losing a few more people.”

“You have to weigh the pros and cons,” he said.

According to researchers at Northwestern University, the “cons” of 
reopening businesses before the pandemic is under control could be 
600,000 lives nationwide.

Under conditions in which the number of cases in much of the United 
States is doubling every day, and where there is no indication that the 
pandemic is under control, such proposals are totally reckless, 
displaying both ignorance and contempt for human life.

Indeed, the “value” of human life has become a major topic of discussion 
in the American press. The New York Times published an article Thursday 
entitled, “Shutdown Spotlights Economic Cost of Saving Lives.” The 
article cites former Obama adviser Cass Sunstein, who stated, “A program 
that saves younger people is better, in this sense, than an otherwise 
identical program that saves older people.”

Another Obama advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel, has repeatedly appeared as a 
media commentator during the pandemic, despite his having argued in 
2014, in an effort to justify cuts to health care, that people should 
not live past 75 because “society and families—and you—will be better 
off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly.”

Society’s first and only concern must be to contain the pandemic as 
rapidly as possible. Social distancing measures, such as the closures of 
schools and workplaces, are a critical element of containing the 
disease, allowing for testing and contact tracing measures to be put in 
place, and spreading out cases so they do not overwhelm hospitals.

The United States and much of Western Europe, however, are not carrying 
out the practices recommended by the WHO. Hospitals throughout the 
United States are refusing to test all but the critically ill, making it 
impossible to track down the majority of cases and informing people who 
have been in contact with them.

And with hospitals already at capacity in much of the country, most 
cases are not being hospitalized, again contrary to WHO guidelines, 
exposing family members to infection.

In demanding that states lift mandatory quarantine orders, Trump, 
speaking for finance capital, raises the prospect of employees being 
compelled to work through threats and sanctions. Those who refuse to 
work in unsafe conditions risk being fired, and thus becoming ineligible 
for unemployment benefits. Workers will have to face the devastating 
choice of sacrificing the health of their own families and facing 
hunger, eviction and homelessness.

Even as the oligarchs demand that workers toil in unsafe conditions, 
workers are beginning to fight back. A wave of walkouts forced the 
closure of the Detroit automakers earlier this month. Workers across the 
logistics industry, including Amazon, have demanded safer working 
conditions, and postal workers in Brooklyn have reportedly refused to 
deliver mail. The hashtags #notdyingforwallstreet and #generalstrike 
have trended across Twitter.

No expense can be spared when it comes to reducing the number of 
infections and saving lives. The working class must demand that 
governments and employers take emergency action to address the crisis:

• Close nonessential workplaces! All workplaces not directly involved in 
medical care and the manufacture of medical products, or vital social 
necessities, must be shut for the duration of the pandemic! Workers out 
of work must receive their full income, and all resources must be made 
available to those affected by school closures, including paid time off 
and food assistance.

• Safe working conditions! All workers must have a safe work environment 
and be protected against the spread of the virus.

• Accessible and universal testing! No expense can be spared in making 
available free testing to all those who show symptoms.

• Free high-quality treatment and equality of care! The most advanced 
medical care must be made available to everyone, regardless of income or 
insurance coverage.

• Protect refugees, prisoners and the homeless! Everyone must have 
access to high-quality and clean living conditions to prevent the spread 
of the disease.

Workers should form rank-and-file workplace and neighborhood committees 
to coordinate their activities, mobilize their collective strength, 
ensure that those who are sick receive social support, and monitor 
working conditions to enforce a safe environment.

The response to the disease cannot be left to the capitalist 
politicians, Democrats or Republican. Their primary concern is to 
maintain the profits of the ruling elite through the inflation of the 
stock market.

On Wednesday, White House advisor Larry Kudlow made clear that the $2 
trillion “stimulus bill” that will soon be passed by the US Congress is 
in addition to some $4 trillion in asset purchases, aimed at lifting the 
values of financial assets. The Congressional bill, supported by both 
Democrats and Republicans, includes tens of billions in direct subsidies 
to major corporations, and hundreds of billions more in loans.

The claim that society must choose between letting workers die and 
subjecting them to economic destitution is false. It assumes the 
permanence of the present capitalist form of social organization, in 
which the state gives trillions to the corporations but cannot ensure a 
livable income for workers if they do not work during an emergency.

Millions of lives can be saved if society allocates the necessary social 
resources to combatting the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring that all 
workers have the social support they need to stay home to preserve the 
safety of their families and the public. Instead of being bailed out 
with trillions of dollars in public funds, the major banks and 
corporations should be put under the democratic control of the 
population to ensure the health and safety of their workforce and all of 
humanity.

The alternative to the dystopian world of capitalism, in which the 
“cost” of human lives is measured against the drive for profit, is 
socialism, a global society based on the reorganization of world economy 
to meet social need.

Andre Damon