The Coronavirus and After
Thoughts on building resistance and fighting for reforms
It’s been more than three weeks since the UK, like many other places, has entered a state of lockdown. “Non-essential” workplaces have been closed. Workplaces that can, have shifted to remote conditions. Those who can’t, lay off their staff who are either left to fend for themselves, seek assistance from the government directly, or go on a government-supported furlough scheme that covers a percentage of their salary — if an employer feels like it.
Since then, the country has run on the backs of “essential workers”, nurses, shelf stockers, lorry drivers, fruit pickers and carers who months prior have been dismissed as low skilled. It’s now obvious that this was an acknowledgement of the low levels of their salary as opposed to their “essentiality”.
The announcement of the shutdown, here like elsewhere, lead to shortages of supplies at the store. From toilet paper to pasta, shelves remained empty for close to two full weeks as the weaknesses of Just-in-Time logistics methods were revealed along with the vulnerability of our interconnected global supply chain.
Foodstuffs were not the only thing missing. Hospitals as well have had to cope with all kinds of shortages. From ICU beds to ventilators and personnel protection equipment (PPE). These shortages, however, were not a result of a shoddy supply chain, it was the result of years of underfunding and limited preparation at government levels. The shortage of equipment has led to international bidding wars to secure whatever was still on the market.
None of this deterred the UK government from initially proposing a ‘herd immunity’ strategy. Instead of shutting down, the government was going to continue business as usual, allowing up to 80% of its citizens to be infected. The Prime Minister jovially appeared in a media briefing declaring he continued to shake hands with people, even in hospitals with known cases. At the time, the death rate from COVID-19 was projected to be close to 1%.
It was only after outrage from the medical community and the public that the government changed its tune and imposed a lockdown. Three weeks after the press conference, the Prime Minister tested positive for COVID-19. Today the death rate in the UK is higher than 10%.
Concurrent with shortages of food and medical equipment are stories of food being thrown away. This happened at an individual level after panic bought food expired. But, more dramatically, it continues to happen at the level of the producer. In the US tons of fresh produce are being dumped due to the fall in demand from restaurants. Meanwhile, pictures of endless lines for foodbanks emerge daily as their use skyrockets alongside the unemployment rate as 10 years of job growth was undone in 4 weeks. The UK may not present such photo-worthy moments, but even before COVID-19, the use of foodbanks had risen by 23% from the year before.
These diametrically opposed images present a reason for serious pause. We have endless lines for foodbanks while tons of food is thrown out. An unimaginable rate of unemployment while the stock market experiences record-setting surges. The lowest-paid members of the workforce suddenly being acknowledged as the most essential. An already overloaded medical system face-to-face with protestors asking for the lifting of social distancing rules.
These contradictory situations can only be understood through a discussion of our capitalist economic system which priorities profit over sustainable production and the health of the general population. An economic system that, due to industrial agriculture and the ever-increasing infringement on forest and other vulnerable ecosystems, has led to the arrival of ever more dangerous pathogens into human environments such as COVID-19. A system built on private property that robs individuals of their say in how and what gets done while maintaining the illusion of freedom.
Resistance
With the arrival of COVID-19, many socialists have praised the ‘awakening’ potential of the virus. For them, it is now impossible for anyone to ignore these blatant contradictions. Therefore, this ‘awakening’ will inevitably lead to the adoption of socialist values by most. This overly optimistic assessment makes two assumptions. The first is a somewhat condescending assumption that people were not previously ‘awake’. The second that an ‘awakening’ is all that is needed to push forward the struggle against capitalism.
The first assumption is simply untrue. Surveys have consistently shown that people are not happy with capitalism, be that through their unhappiness at work or an outright endorsement of socialist ideals. The majority is more than aware that something smells funny. If people were just now ‘waking up’, how can we explain the thousands of Mutual-Aid groups that have popped up around the UK to make sure that the most vulnerable are being taken care of? or the growing wave of wildcat strikes taking place at US workplaces, some of which are asking for their manufacturing plants to begin producing needed medical equipment? Or the many across the world organizing as tenants, refusing to pay rent as they watch governments promising trillions to businesses and nothing to workers? Or the murmurs of a general strike?
If people were already ‘awake’ then it becomes obvious that an ‘awakening’ is not all that is needed to spur people into action. What has changed is not these individuals level of ‘awakening’, but a change in the external conditions that would have made continuing with business as usual untenable. These conditions, which have spurred action, will not be around for long. In fact, as much as it can be said that they pose revolutionary potential it can also be said that they equally create a drive and sense of urgency to return to ‘normal’.
Indeed, this need for normality can be used to explain a lot. Many governments around the world have received high praise for going on immediate shutdown and dealing with the virus head-on. Is this because they are more concerned about citizens health than others? Obviously this is not entirely the case. Political calculations definitely factor in as to the messaging put out to citizens, be it a militaristic lockdown or a more ‘humanistic’ approach. We can safely say that whichever approach is taken, the case for effective lockdown is to speed up the economic recovery. In the UK and the US, the story is slightly different. The political cover is available (or was) to prolong going on lockdown and take advantage of the economic downturn of other countries. It’s worth keeping in mind here that normalcy is not just living in a domestic world of contradiction but also an international world of competition which has assisted the mismanagement of this pandemic on a global level.
The difference in responses from governments is an enticing one to fixate on. It’s hard not to applaud measures that seem to promote a healthy citizenry. Spain temporarily nationalizing its hospitals and mulling over the introduction of UBI present perfect examples. How can we not support these measures when we compare them to the UK renting out beds from private hospitals at a rate of 2.4 million pounds a day?
The problem is that by engaging in such comparisons we are losing out on the opportunity to present cases that are altogether alternate to the limited responses that can be found within capitalism. Additionally, the expansion of state involvement in this crisis, as great as it may be for the general welfare, presents a major danger when it comes to what happens after the crisis. With the great expansion of the reserve army of labour, the state has an enticing incentive in expanding its involvement in the day to day life of citizens. In the UK there are already talks of using furloughed workers as a modern-day ‘land army’. Tech companies are also being asked to share location data with governments to help them impose better lockdown measures. Cases of police overreach due to their newly acquired special powers under coronavirus legislation has also been extensively reported on. Quebec, in Canada, has suspended collective agreements. Most dramatically, however, is the emergency legislation put in place in Hungary which gives the Prime Minister the ability to rule by decree, jail those who spread ‘misinformation’, and has no time-limit.
Nation-states emerging after this pandemic may not go as far Hungary, but there is no doubt that the neoliberal order that sustained the global capitalist system will not be enough to recover economic losses. Fetishizing state reactions leaves us blind to the fact that governments will be turning to harsher methods of coercion to recoup the losses this pandemic has brought about.
Reform and Regeneration
If we are to avoid capitalism’s cycle of destruction and ‘creative’ recovery, our organizations should be looking at taking up three tasks.
The first is to agitate by presenting an alternative vision to capitalism. This means avoiding pointing out what capitalist state responses have been better, but creatively showing what a socialist response to a pandemic would look like. This involves more than just saying it would be better. Socialists have a tendency of forgetting that the people they communicate with are not all bibliophiles of Marx’s work. The question of why and how need to be plainly presented to feed curiosity and help sustain the feeling that normal is untenable.
The second task is to use our organizations to connect the various struggles of resistance that are already taking place and build coalitions. Many socialist organizations have a tendency to simply provide prescriptive orders to the abstract working class instead of mobilizing their resources to expand on their work. This is usually because socialist groups either don’t have that mobilizing ability and are therefore reduced to frustratingly trying to direct ‘the working class’ or because their political stance requires them to be at the forefront of mobilization with their ‘correct’ programs as opposed to just one participant in a larger movement.
It’s only through trying to connect these different sites of resistance and spontaneous actions that we can build a coalition of working-class groups and generate a unified set of demands that accurately reflects the needs of those affected and doing the organizing themselves. Group formation and coalition building will also encourage more people to participate in individual actions such as rent strikes as fear from being singled out for retribution is reduced. This, as opposed to generating a prescriptive program that leans on what other countries are doing or adventurism.
The third task is to ensure that connected sites of resistance do not melt away once/if demands are met. This can be done by ensuring that concessions made by the government serve to intensify the antagonisms that we are already seeing. Demands should include ones that lead to a transfer of power from centralized decision-makers to those making demands. For example, an increase in workplace democracy and union rights, any bailout funds being used as bail-ins where shareholding power is moved to workers instead of remaining with the government to be sold back at under market prices. These demands should be imbedded alongside tangible demands like an increase in the minimum wage, a housing-first policy to deal with homelessness, hazard pay etc. A drive towards member-based organizing is another way to secure the longevity of whatever groups form today.
To be able to actively undertake these tasks means, most importantly, to shift the mindset of our own organizations. This pandemic caught both governments and us by surprise (I’d say we have more of an excuse for being caught off guard though). We need to shift our mindset from a reactive one and start seeing ourselves and the groups working alongside us as real contenders for power as opposed to just being dampers on capitalism.
