Over 600,000 Americans died, and over 33 million were infected with COVID-19, much of which could have been prevented. Some are still getting sick. This pandemic has been quite eye-opening for us, the working class, the 99%. It’s made several things clearer, including the systematic nature of what we are up against and the kind of government we need to fight for.
First, during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of us were suddenly promoted to the new category of “essential workers.” Even though we were underpaid, overworked, and often in dangerous working conditions before and during the pandemic, at least we were recognized for our importance in keeping the country running. During the pandemic, we picked and sold food, delivered packages, stocked warehouses, worked in transportation, and cared for others in hospitals and nursing homes, often with inadequate protective equipment. We suffered from higher COVID-19 rates, but for the first time, some of us were given a bit extra “hazard pay” for the risks we took. Hmmm…
Second, we saw dramatic disparities in those dying from COVID-19, with Indigenous Americans, African Americans, Latinx Americans, and poor Americans of all colors getting sick and dying at rates 2-3 times as high as more economically secure Americans. Many in these strong affected sections of the working class are also essential workers. We are more likely to suffer from pre-existing health conditions due to the inadequate health care, nutrition, and stressful living conditions those of us in poverty experience. We are more likely to live in crowded homes or be homeless, which puts us at greater risk. Some government officials tried to blame us for our circumstances, but most of the American people expressed surprise and concern at the health vulnerabilities of their fellow Americans that the pandemic laid bare. We don’t want to live in such an unequal country.
Third, we also learned that U.S. billionaires increased their wealth by $1.6 trillion during the pandemic, while the number of families in poverty ballooned, the sharpest rise in poverty since the 1960s. We also found out (again) that our nation’s richest citizens pay little to no income taxes, and it was perfectly legal. Hmmm…
Fourth, due to COVID-19, we were at home to watch Minneapolis Police Officer Chauvin kneel on the neck of an unarmed African American man as he repeatedly cried “I can’t breathe” and called out for his mother while a crowd of community members was prevented from helping him. We witnessed George Floyd murdered by a government employee paid by our tax dollars, and we poured out into the streets immediately and consistently for months to demand that our government stop killing unarmed Black people, not in our name! We saw the unity of people of all colors outraged by this public lynching, and, led by young people, we created the largest protest movement in American history, with 26 million people participating in at least one action. Many of us started to understand that slavery was built into our country’s capitalist economic system from the start, and its legacy is still used by the ruling class to control, exploit and divide us. We clearly saw that, just like COVID-19 deaths and essential workers, police violence was a part of unjust systemic inequalities.
We also started to see the path forward to a new America. Many of us began to realize we could imagine another world. We made demands.
Our unified demands led to Chauvin and the other three officers who stood by as Floyd was killed being arrested and prosecuted, with Chauvin convicted and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison, a very rare if not unheard of outcome. Our demands led to several municipalities cutting police budgets and redirecting funds to violence prevention, mental health services, youth programs, and housing. Incarcerated persons were released from prison and jail, bail and arrests for minor offenses were significantly reduced, policies that prison abolitionists have been pushing for years.
Though its efforts were inadequate, we saw that our federal government could provide survival and relief money to all of its people – unemployment insurance and stimulus checks. We saw this money lift millions of us up, and that when the government withdrew it, millions fell back. We saw that our government could offer hotel rooms and meals to impoverished unhoused people living in the streets and could stop all evictions, foreclosures, utility shut-offs, and students loan defaults when people couldn’t afford to pay. The state of California just agreed to pay all unpaid back rent for low-income renters since April 2020!
We saw that our government could offer free healthcare for all in the form of COVID testing, COVID vaccines, and COVID-related mental health hotlines. We saw public school districts provide free food to families even though schools were closed. Students were also provided free computers and internet service (when during the regular school year public school students are asked to bring their own pencils and even toilet paper).
We will not go back! We have seen small glimpses of what our society could be, what a good government could do. Our imagination has been triggered. Our consciousness and unity have advanced. But we must fight strategically for a new society to make it a reality. Revolution starts in the economy. That economic revolution was well underway before the pandemic. The new technology of robotics, AI, and other automation is revolutionizing society and replacing far more jobs than it creates, destroying capitalism, an economic system built on the buying and selling of human labor. The social revolution is underway – the whole society trying to adjust to the decline of living wage jobs and the destruction of the social contract that results.
Our response to COVID, Chauvin, and Trump took the social revolution to another level. We have protested and voted like never before. But to accomplish the deep systematic restructuring of society that we need, a political revolution is necessary. The labor-replacing technology is creating a new objectively communist class of workers being pushed out of the economy. Communism is simply the public ownership of the means of producing what we need, a way to distribute these needs to everyone, and a way to enable everyone to contribute what they can to society. The new class must have the political power to achieve its goals for a cooperative society, which is in the interests of all of humanity and the earth. As we come out of the pandemic, many of us are ready to unite in that struggle.
To inspire us, we will close with the words of Arundhati Roy in her visionary essay, “The Pandemic is a Portal,” “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
“We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks, and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Published: July 7, 2021
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