Almost half the global workforce - 1.6 billion people - are in "immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed" by the economic impact of Covid-19, the International Labour Organization has warned.
In the last month, more than a thousand Cuban doctors and nurses have traveled to twenty countries to join the global battle against Covid-19. There’s historical precedence for this.
“The global struggle against the pandemic has little chance to succeed if personal hygiene, the main measure to prevent contagion, is unavailable to the 2.2 billion persons who have no access to safe water services.”
Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin tackle the questions of what lessons we can learn from this pandemic and how society may organize moving forward.
The crisis this time is unique in an especially topsy-turvy way. In past capitalist crises, the state intervened to try and get the economy going again. This time, the is not on how to revive the economy, but how to further restrict it.
...the super-capitalism of today has become an absolute fetter on the development of the productive forces necessary for our species survival.
This is not the time to pull up the (national) hatches and speak simply of the fight against the virus inside our own borders.
The way out is nothing short of birthing a world (or perhaps more along the lines of returning back to Earth). It will also help solve—sleeves rolled up—many of our most pressing problems.
How Covid-19 Affects Capitalism, How We Cope, and How We Can Respond
Talk of a manufacturing renaissance is nonsense. And there is no reason, based on Trump administration’s economic policies, to expect one.
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