The coronavirus pandemic has reached nearly every corner of the world. In just 42 days, 582,634 of us in the U.S. have COVID-19, and 23,649 have died. Globally, 1,935,646 have the virus, and 120,914 have died. The poorer you are, the harder you will be hit.
The COVID-19 pandemic is upsetting every aspect of life in the world, and here in America. This month, Feeding America said it would need $1.4 billion over the next six months to ensure its food banks have enough resources to serve their communities.
On the other hand, many of the wealthy in the New York area have isolated themselves in luxury. They play golf, garden, have food delivered from New York City to their safe havens, according to CNN. Compare this to the nurses, doctors, housekeepers, food servers and cooks in hospitals and nursing homes, and grocery store workers, many of whom take public transportation to work. Many of them have died from the virus.
Millions of Americans are shocked and angry. And, despite the dangers and fear, many are speaking out and participating in new forms of protest. Revolutionaries must be a part of and help bring clarity and direction to the outcries. Going forward depends upon understanding how we got to this point, the significance of these events, and the social and economic context of this crisis.
We are gripped by an economic revolution. New ways of producing goods of all kinds are destroying our society, which is based on workers making a wage. More types of work are being performed by robots, electronic methods, and Artificial Intelligence, replacing human labor. There is a growing class of people who are being pushed out of any way to work, receive a wage, and purchase housing, food, and medical care. Whole communities are being destroyed in the process.
The coronavirus pandemic has increased the momentum of this entire process.
The coronavirus crisis is showing how the most vulnerable and economically unstable are suffering the most. CNN reported, “According to figures released this week, African Americans make up 32% of the population of Louisiana, but account for 70% of the coronavirus deaths; they make up 15% of the population of Illinois, but account for 42% of the deaths; and they make up 14% of Michigan’s population but account for 40% of deaths. The disparities in cities were particularly wide, with blacks accounting for 72% of the deaths in Chicago, where they make up just 30% of the population.”
Latinos in New York City make up 34 percent of the people who have died of the coronavirus but makeup 29 percent of the city’s population.
Being among the destitute and marginalized of all ethnicities means you have poor health care, more health problems, and fewer resources to fight off viruses. The gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest 1 percent of individuals in the U.S. is around 14 years, which continues to grow. The government shutdown in 2019 laid bare how many of its employees live paycheck to paycheck, unable to sustain themselves in times of crisis.
There is a general sense among people that the effect of the pandemic on the economy and society is permanent, and that any relief from the government is temporary. Corporations are accelerating their use of automation to replace employees who have been laid off because of the health crisis. Millions will have no jobs to return to.
Everyone is familiar with the saying “the rich get richer.” Today it means greater polarization with all the wealth going to one pole, and all of the destitution to the other, encompassing great sections of the population. What we need to know is that the process of polarization is a necessary stage of change. It is essential to workers coming to the realization that they are part of a class whose interests are entirely antagonistic to the ruling class.
The polarization of wealth in 2020 has no equal in other moments of human history:
- 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people, who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population.
- The top eight richest billionaires own as much combined wealth as “half the human race.”
- The U.S. is the world’s dominant country for billionaires, home to an estimated 705 billionaires.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that the U.S. is one of the most unequal nations in the world. Only Bulgaria, Turkey, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and South Africa have greater inequality.
Andrew Yang, a former candidate for President, said, “We’re going to see something like 10 years of change in 10 weeks.” Right now,” Yang adds, “this virus is the perfect environment for companies to get rid of people, bring in robots and machines, and figure out how they can operate more efficiently. … There’s a growing recognition that our economy is transforming not just in the short term, but in the long term.”
The powerful U.S. State apparatus has step by step transformed the political landscape of the country. Its goal is to guarantee that that the ruling class remains in control of the means of production at the expense of vast numbers of Americans.
The crisis we are in is vast and deadly, and yet it offers the possibility of a way forward.
The force for changes lies within the 18 plus million people who have lost their jobs, the millions lining up for food, the hundreds of thousands seeking medical care to treat the coronavirus, the more than one-third of those who couldn’t pay their rent in April. This force is the ray of light inside the pandemic.
Revolutionaries have to rely on the impulse of the people to organize and unite to fight for a better future. We have to play a role in uniting those impulses with a vision of the country, where the means of production are publicly owned, and their product distributed according to need. In spite of worsening economic conditions, nothing can be accomplished until the American people hold a vision of where they want to go and what they want to be. Creating this vision with them is the overriding task of revolutionaries and the foundation of our organization, the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. Join us!
