Coronavirus

covid 19 map Image PixabayThe COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has plunged the capitalist system into a deep crisis. The stock markets are plummeting, a recession seems inevitable, and the ineptitude of the ruling class’ political leaders is being ruthlessly exposed everywhere.

Rather than a concerted, global response to the outbreak, protectionist tendencies in the world market have been accelerated, as governments rush to throw up borders to horde medical supplies and scramble for exclusive rights to vaccines.

The bosses and bourgeois governments have attempted to force the working class to shoulder the burden of this emergency, banning mass gatherings at the same time as sending people to work without adequate safety measures. This has been met with a backlash, with a wave of strikes in badly affected countries like Italy forcing the bosses to backtrack. This is despite the woeful response of the leaders of the workers’ mass organisations, who have mostly fallen in line with their governments rather than fight back.

While this pandemic was the catalyst, it was not the cause of the current social, political and economic crisis. This was already prepared in the last period of capitalist crisis and austerity, which savagely cut health services, brought increasingly degenerate leadership to the fore, and caused huge resentment to accumulate in the fabric of society. COVID-19 was accidental, but the calamity it has provoked was inevitable.

This virus marks the beginning of a new, tumultuous period in world history, one in which the consciousness of the masses will rapidly advance as the totally rotten state of the capitalist system and its leaders are laid bare.

 

We are living through a decisive turning point in history. At such times, it is natural to look for reference points or historical parallels. But nothing seems to really fit what we are experiencing.

While the real economy has fallen off a cliff in recent months, stock prices have reached record highs. Capitalism is nothing but a casino. In place of this speculation and gambling, we need a rational socialist economic plan.

There are no parallels to the current chaos wreaking havoc on society. This is no normal capitalist crisis. Revolutionary developments are exploding to the surface across the world. We need a leadership that is up to the task.

The Tory government is lurching from one disaster to another. The rate of infections is rising. And as the economy reopens and students return to school, a second wave is all but certain. We need a militant opposition to this government of chaos.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all parts of society and has thrown hundreds of millions out of work globally. However, a closer look reveals that women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Women workers play a key role in health care, child care, elder care, and teaching while experiencing low wages, insecure employment, and domestic and sexual violence—all of which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

New Zealand has apparently beaten the COVID-19 pandemic and the Labour-led government is the most popular in history. However, the reformists in charge still think they can manage capitalism indefinitely. Instead, they should be laying the ground for socialist policies. 

All over the world, lockdowns are being lifted. Amidst the biggest economic and social crisis in living memory, the ruling class is pushing a “return to normality” – before it is safe, while preparing new attacks on the working class. This pandemic is continuing to bring the rottenness and cynicism in capitalist society to the surface.

The Central Trade Unions (CTUs), comprising 16 unions, called for protests all over India on 3 July, which took place throughout the country. Nearly 100,000 demonstrations occurred in all the states of India including Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha and Maharashtra. In these demonstrations, protestors agitated outside their union offices, in plants, and on streets and roads. This strike was accompanied by a coal workers’ strike against privatisation, lasting three days from 2-4 July.

Since the spread of COVID-19 began in Canada, there has been a huge surge in opioid-related overdoses across the country. This spike in overdoses is directly connected to the scaling back of resources for those struggling with opioid addiction. This is just another example of how COVID-19 has taken all the problems of capitalist society and exacerbated them, affecting the most downtrodden layers the hardest.

The recent deaths of three migrant workers in Canada from COVID-19 have once again shed light on the horrific abuse and exploitation of workers under Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Packed like sardines into overcrowded bunkhouses and workplaces with little regard for their health and no rights or protections, migrant workers have contracted COVID-19 at a far higher rate than the rest of the population. Far from being a new phenomenon, the situation is part of the long saga of Canadian capitalism killing migrant workers for the sake

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The COVID-19 crisis is hitting India hard. Despite only spending 1.2 percent of GDP on healthcare, Modi is assuring his fellow countrymen that they do not need to worry; that India is equipped with the required infrastructure to cope with the pandemic. This is a blatant lie. The Indian healthcare system was devastated even before COVID-19, and it is certainly no better under the current crisis. With the coronavirus hitting all major towns and villages, the rottenness of the Indian healthcare system is laid bare. Here, we will analyse the situation facing the health system in India, the state’s inability to address the pandemic, the role of the private sector, the limits of Indian

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The capitalists and the stock markets were breathing a sigh of relief as new economic figures showed a slowing of the rate of the decline in the world economy. However, none of the problems have been resolved and the inevitable uptick after the easing of lockdown will not alter the prospect of a deep economic, social and political crisis.

This extensive work (originally published in March by Lucha de Clases in Spanish) exposes who controls the world’s economic and health resources, how we can break away from the exploitative and irrational capitalist system that is strangling public health, and how we can ensure healthcare for the working class of the entire world.