In last Tuesday's post, I tried to list those who are not in this together with the rest of us: namely those who cannot practice social distancing because of their jobs or their means of transportation.
But there are other people to include in that group as well. Another group includes undocumented migrant workers and the homeless. Then we can go from those who wish they had a home to those who wish that they didn't have to stay at home: those who suffer from physical and/or emotional domestic abuse. Such people need resources and perhaps a new, albeit possibly temporary, home for their own protection. People from both groups are people we should keep in mind and thus see what we can do to help if all of us are really going to be in this together.
Going from those who can't feel a part of the rest of us because of their economic or citizenship status, or their home situation, we need to think about those who say they are trying to help us but will look to exploit the attention around the virus to wrongly change the system. Currently under Trump, what we have we have is an Ayn Rand coup of the government. By Ayn Rand I mean we have a significant section of the wealthy who care so much for themselves that it is at the expense of others. In other words, they want to share as little as possible with the rest of society because they want to maximize personal profits. That can indicated by how their businesses treat their employees during the crisis. It can also be seen in what they want their purchased elected government officials to accomplish for them.
Under Trump's Presidency, the environment will suffer new set backs as his EPA has now decided not to enforce any EPA regulations. How long this lack of enforcement will occur is unknown. Will it occur just until the lockdown is over or will it last longer in order to "help" other some businesses cut production costs. In either case, what this means is that more toxins will be put into our environment especially in increasing the toxins in the air and water. Those toxins can compromise the health of everyone without having to be like a contagious virus. And those who suffer the most from increased pollution include those from urban areas who cannot practice social distancing because of their jobs and/or their means of transportation.
In addition, if Trump doesn't approve increased funding for our postal system, then we could see the privatization of the postal system. In our shareholder economy, the wealthiest of shareholders might like this because, like the Prison Industrial Complex, it becomes another venue for businesses to increase returns for shareholders by appearing to offer customers a great deal for sending mail but at the expense of many of the employees who will actually provide the services. One only needs to investigate the abuses practiced by the Prison Industrial Complex to see how privatizing services that were once reserved for the government to provide can easily lead to corruption and the harm of many people.
Likewise, we need to investigate how Social Security will be funded during this time. Will funding for Social Security be sacrificed in the name of tax relief? The end of Social Security will mean little to some, but can mean a lot to others some of whom are the most vulnerable fellow Americans. Some of the current Republicans, unlike their predecessors see Social Security as another trophy for privatization. And that means that, with the end of government provided Social Security, Wall Street assumes control over quite a few more funds. Even Republicans like Reagan looked to protect Social Security. Not so with at least McConnell and very possibly Donald Trump.
What Republicans won't say is that what they fear in a centralized powerful government is what they crave for in an ever growing and thus a centralized economy, under Wall Street. And we should not be surprised by that. After all both political parties are, for the most part, owned and controlled by wealth. Some have already reclassified America as an oligarchy rather than a democracy (click here for media view and there for a more technical view of the problem).
What we need to realize in a society that employs a capitalistic economic system is that money can easily be converted into political power. And that is even more true with our current Neoliberal form of Capitalism than it was true with the post WW II Bretton-Woods system. The difference between the two is that government held on to some important controls of the economy that it yielded with Neoliberal Capitalism.
The more our political system is controlled by money, the more authoritarian our government becomes and that is true regardless of the political party that has power. The authoritarianism that exists when the Democrats are in power is far more subtle than what comes with Republican control. But it is is there in significant and real ways.
In other words, as we are all focused on the pandemic and the risks that we and our loved ones must undertake to survive, there are things happening behind the scenes that will greatly affect the world we return to after the lockdown has been lifted and the pandemic is over.
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