critical-mass.net

The limits of nature.

The 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic has been another demonstration that the natural world has limits and that not every limit can be definitively overcome. However, this microscopic life-form has not ‘caused‘ the crisis. It merely placed a proverbial straw onto an already top-heavy, overburdened, crisis-prone capitalist system. Blaming an invisible virus or China for economic crisis is simply political spin.

The current economic collapse is fundamentally a further result of the faulty foundations upon which capitalism is built. Again (as in 1929, 1939-50 and 2008) capitalist industry and commerce has to be bailed out by a series of public measures. The representatives of privatisation and capitalist society have socialised a capital created crisis by massive grants of state created loans and cash.

This latest socialistic type rescue mission has occurred because pro-capitalists consider not even economic ideology is more important than the capitalist mode of production itself. To them, nature is not more important, family is not more important, community is not more important, human life is not more important; even the planet is not more important, than extracting profits from economic activity.

To maintain profitability the capitalist system and it’s supporters have over two generations; destroyed natural habitats, decimated families, uprooted communities, bombed nations and some plan to colonise other planets once this one is ruined.

The limitations of capital.

Capital, Profit and Production have become the real-world trinity for capitalists – the secular and economic equivalent of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of Christianity. However, the holy ghost of capitalist production has disturbed nature in ever increasing ways. Wide-spread floods, repeated famines, extensive forest fires and new global diseases, have been triggered by missionary work dedicated to capital and profit. The mentality of homo-technophile, (species: profito-sapien), continues to assume that nature’s limits are simply barriers to be overcome.

In overcoming natural and social barriers, science and technology, harnessed to the profit motive, has left large areas of the planet devastated and rendered sections of humanity intellectually impervious to the deteriorating condition of the whole of nature. However, the natural world is not simply a resource to be exploited.

Nature is a complex interaction of organic and inorganic material, which once sufficiently disrupted, has unintended consequences beyond the ability of humanity to control. Yet vested interests still sufficiently dominate the upper and middle sectors of humanity making them unwilling to view what should be increasingly obvious.

The limitations of mainstream media.

Nowhere has this failure of vision been more audible and visible than in mainstream media broadcasts during the Covid-19 lock-down. There has been an unending stream of commentators on radio and television networks who are unanimous in avoiding seeing their own varied – yet crucial – role in this crisis or the others we face.

On TV and radio, presenters, politicians, hand-picked, medical experts and celebrities strut their stuff and enthusiastically promote the myth that lock-down is just a temporary blip before a return to their one-sided form of ‘normality’.

For weeks – as people were actually dying – media appearances by comedians, musicians, documentary producers, film directors, politicians, bankers and sports men and women have glossed over tragedy and expressed their desire to get back to jetting around the world and accumulating their disproportionate slice of annual wealth, derived from their gigs, conferences, festivals and locations.

The equally narcissistic sports fraternity and ‘game’ commentators, voiced anticipation of many international flights to ‘matches’ and ‘races’ staged around the world – when its all over!

During my eight weeks of lock-down listening and watching, not one contributor across many channels, stations and bulletins has shown an inkling that their combined activities based on the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is a substantial part of the problems (including Covid-19) faced by humanity as a whole.

In over two months of mainstream broadcasting and print, it has not, to my knowledge, crossed any of the collective or individual contributors minds that the natural world and humanity may need a permanent rest from all this hedonistic and self-destructive so-called economic activity.

The limitations of celebrity.

It may not be true that Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned, but we have a modern equivalent of that possibility in wall to wall, self-absorbed celebrities and politicians ignoring the contribution they have made to the planets many disorders. These battalions of well positioned and intellectually ‘conditioned’ apostles of mammon are an enormous conservative weight upon the efforts to defeat Covid-19 and change the mode of production for a better one.

They manage to ignore the fact that the capitalist system which pays celebrity so handsomely also creates poverty – and poverty kills just as effectively as a virus!

We need to learn to detach our admiration for individual celebrities from their taken-for-granted entitlement to disproportional rewards compared to those who continually supply our food, water, electricity, sewage disposal, transport and heal our damaged bodies. We also need to remove our support for the ‘entitlement’, assumed by celebrity, political, financial, economic and military status, to use their wealth to dis-proportionally damage and pollute land, air and water resources.

The limiting of dissent.

Also to my knowledge, not one seriously dissenting voice or radical pen has yet been allowed on any mainstream media outlet. Mainstream media has been a constant gushing forth of self-obsessed middle-class economic and political mediocrity. The Internet has been the only source of radical dissent and that has meant sifting past the imaginative inventions of those, who only prove that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Being certain of something and repeating it with little or no independent evidence to support it is exactly what the political and governing elites are doing. Being no different in this regard is to be no different in general and a refreshing difference by honesty and humanity is what is desperately needed as we consider the future.

Well honed ‘crap detectors’ and the internet are still important attributes for us to develop and to wield as we survive 2020 and go beyond.

Roy Ratcliffe (May 2020)

Despite all their previous mistakes and shortcomings around the Covid-19 pandemic, there are anxious elites around the world who wish to convince working people to go back to work – as soon as possible. They suggest that this return to work is primarily for the sake of the economy. In other words for the same economic system that before Covid-19, treated working people like disposable commodities, whilst promoting increasingly wealthy elites into the billionaire category. In short, they want a return to the type of economy which bolsters the well-being, investments and share dividends of the elite and their hangers on. It is not really about saving lives, for ordinary working people’s lives are considered expendable.

Front line expendables.

Already health care workers, plus those ensuring water, power, food, sewage and refuse collection, have had to risk catching Covid-19 and passing it on to their colleagues, friends and families. Their lives have already been treated as expendable by the failure to supply enough protective equipment for them. Many have already died. This failure was compounded by the decision – from the outset of the pandemic – to issue out of date and unreliable equipment. For example in the UK it has been discovered that;

“Around 200 million vital pieces of kit – including respirators, masks, syringes and needles – had all expired in the eight months before 30 January.” (Channel 4 News)

Furthermore, the same news source obtained insider information that much of the equipment, purchased in 2009, only had a five year shelf life. Instead of being renewed, it had been re-stamped with dates of 2012, 2016 and 2019 and delivered to UK hospitals in March 2020. Only an oligarchy of governing elites with an attitude of callous indifference to the welfare and lives of working people would allow such breaches of safety protocols.

Moreover, if this has occurred in one advanced industrial country, we can surmise something similar – or worse – has occurred in many other countries.

Second line expendables.

The next category of working class expendables expected to risk their lives by returning to work, are those who supplement the first tier workers already delivering the basic essentials, noted above. This second group would comprise of transport workers in road, rail and air services. Additionally, those in industry and commerce who make, store and sell commodities and provide services, will be pressured back to work by one means or another.

Since there is still insufficient protective and testing equipment available for these further sectors, this represents a callous disregard for the lives of these two categories of working people. This indifference is further emphasised by the fact that – as yet – there is an insufficient understanding of how lethal Covid-19 is and how quickly it mutates. Workers returning to their jobs risk not only catching the virus but of also spreading it to other workers and their families.

Not only that but the percentage who do get it in a life-threatening form will also take that into hospitals and intensive care units where – even if more doctors and nurses do not die – it will stretch an already overstretched workforce of health care and medical workers. Thus the lives of a percentage of these two categories of workers – which we all depend upon – are to be treated as expendable.

Furthermore, the rest of us self-isolaters may face an even longer period of isolation if (or rather when) such an unprotected, untested return to work causes a second wave of infections as in South Korea. And all this ‘calculated’ risk to workers will be so that economic activity can ‘return’ to producing profits and dividends for wealthy shareholders. Many of whom will pay to protect themselves from Covid-19.

Retired expendables.

All retired working people, who survive to pension age are, with some exceptions, already treated with callous indifference. Despite a life-time of paying taxes on income and expenditure, pensions for many old people are a pittance. Many have to choose between keeping warm or eating enough food. Care homes have, by and large, been transformed into profit-making, low cost centers of containment and now contagion.

Clearly the political and governing elites, with huge salaries, expenses and pensions, display a callous indifference to the end of life experiences of the old and infirm working classes. In the UK just prior to Covid-19 paralysing the world, the Government and the BBC both wanted to stop allowing those over 75 to have a free television licence.

NB.The astronomical salaries and fees paid to the heads and entertainers of this broadcasting establishment were more important to preserve than this small privilege for decades of hard-working, tax-payers.

But the end-of-life period of this third expendable section of the working class could now be made even more miserable by those who govern our societies. For in the current political elite debate about a staggered return to work a revealing suggestion is already circulating. Since those over 70 are vulnerable to severe illness by Covid-19, they could be told to continue in social isolation for an extended period of time.

Having worked hard all their lives, some even having fought in a war (or two), working class senior citizens, many of them living alone, are to continue their lives – and many more will end it – in a form of solitary confinement! Not through their own fault but because the governing classes internationally have proved incompetent in preparing and managing a foreseeable pandemic.

Millions of pensioners through poor pension provision are now living in food and resource poverty and having this misery compounded by not being able to mix with their friends or have visitors. If you are working class and not yet retired, be warned: Capitalist-led forms of society, whose elites organise expensive and complex landings on moons and far off planets, excavate tunnels beneath seas, build themselves luxury mansions and fund weapons of mass destruction, also have the above impoverished retirement outcome in mind for your old age.

Roy Ratcliffe (May 2020)

I suggest there are three class-based perspectives from which to view the dilemma facing key workers in the fight against Covid-19 and three related responses to their efforts.

1 The authoritarian elite perspective. This is one which nearly all governments have adopted. This perspective considers all workers should carry out the duties assigned to them by the employer, (private or public) no matter how dangerous the duties become. Thus dying from work-related illness is considered an occupational hazard and it is unfortunate that some occupations are more hazardous than others. Upholders of this elite perspective, may applaud working people’s dedication even if they are not equipped with sufficient protective gear and tools.

They may also publicly thank them for their sacrifices, but still urge them to carry on. But authoritarian appreciation is not an expression of love for workers or humanity in general. They reason that since working people choose their occupations they should expect to take the rough with the smooth and not to complain about infringements of workplace rights. Yet in tackling Covid-19, many health and front-line workers are daily embarking upon potential suicide missions.

2 The elite social democratic perspective. According to this elite perspective, workers should have the right to request or even demand, (through proper) channels appropriate protection and suitable tools for the job. Only in exceptional cases should workers endanger their lives by carrying on working without proper protection. Workers should also be protected if they whistle-blow to expose dangerous situations. In this more democratic) view, work related deaths are not a legitimate occupational hazard and should be compensated accordingly.

The social democratic response will also applauded working people for carrying on working in hazardous conditions, particularly if they do so without proper protection and equipment. Furthermore, the holders of this view will invariably promise such situations will never happen again. A public inquiry to address the ‘mistakes’ will be promised so that in future they will not happen. In this perspective there is also no love for workers or humanity in general. There is, however, a social democratic conscience which needs to be eased by sincere concern, promises and regret for what working people have been through.

Love and humanity from workers.

It may seem strange in the context of considering the circumstances attending Covid-19 to introduce the concept of love. However, I think it is the only term which adequately explains why doctors, nurses, care workers and other key personnel do not down tools and go on strike until properly equipped. Duty, money and ambition may explain why people continue work in hazardous situations, but a daily risk of losing ones life from within the working environment is different.

When someone repeatedly tries to comfort and save the lives of dying strangers – at the risk of their own – it can only be classed as a form of love – love for another human being. I characterise the broader appearance of this symptom as ‘disaster-humanism’ but for me it is just another expression of love.

[I do not mean the mere use of the word ‘love’ but the actions which actually demonstrate it.]

I suggest that humanitarian based love is a motive different than usual for job selection. It is this which propels people into health and social care and keeps them there when pay is low, hours long and conditions dire. It is the same something extra which motivates people to save lives at sea, rescue people from burning buildings and donate bodily organs to others. Among various kinds of love; love of ones parents, children, brother, sister, partner, sweetheart, or comrade at arms; humanitarian love – is less discussed – but nonetheless active.

Moreover, it is the kind of love which is not only being dispensed in hospitals and care homes, but in ambulances, refugee camps, food banks etc., by those who daily run the gauntlet of contagion to support the helpless, hungry, the sick and the dying. Furthermore, I suggest that love in this form is part of our social evolution. It stems from an emotional response to the practical need to ‘belong’ to mutually beneficial exchanges. In order to survive emotionally, social-beings need to belong. And social groups are where we learn to give and receive love, whether that is with parents, partners, communities and by extension to humanity in general.

3 The working-class perspective. From a working-class perspective, the only real return for the unselfishly given love noted above is love returned in a similar unselfish humanist manner. This view reasons that elite prompted gestures are not enough. These do not exchange like for like. A working-class response requires a recognition that front-line staff and those who keep the health service and basic food, water, electricity, sewage and refuge services going deserve more than applause, bouquets of flowers, aircraft flyovers or illuminated buildings.

They deserve pay, conditions and pensions in line with how important they are to the well-being of our societies.

Finally.

The present private profit dominated system only needed the smallest parasitic life form to penetrate it’s supply chains to trigger collapse. This prompted wealthy enterprise leaders to call for more financial and logistics support from the public sector – and they got it! If large amounts of cash can be found to prop up the richest parts of national economies then it can and should be found for those noted above and all those living hand to mouth. Only a lack of love for humanity by ‘elites’ could return working people to even more poverty when the Covid-19 lock-down is over.

An all-round love for humanity requires a new mode of production based upon egalitarian and sustainable foundations. It is also needed to replace the instability and vulnerability of the present one. A Revolutionary-Humanist perspective means arguing and campaigning for such a society. That way the example of unselfish love provided by health workers and others can be returned and also extended to those who will soon be added to the existing numbers of low-paid, homeless and hungry.

Roy Ratcliffe (May 2020)

Of the many omissions by the elites in governments of all political persuasions during the Covid19 Pandemic, two in particular are becoming the intellectual equivalents of elephants in the room. First, is the lack of any form of apology from governments for the lack of preparation, personal protection and testing equipment to key people and health services of their respective countries. Second, is the lack of any discussion or even hint of thinking about preventing future Pandemics.

No apologies.

Of all the government elites which had the opportunity to be prepared in advance for a pandemic coming from anywhere, clearly those in the USA and the UK were the most advantaged. Take for example, the USA. Its National Security Strategy of 1999 stated;

“..epidemics, such as polio, tuberculosis and AIDS, can destroy human life on a scale as great as any war or terrorist act we have seen, and the resulting burden on health systems can undermine hard-won advances in economic and social development.”

Of course there were later outbreaks such as SARS; HPN1 (avian); H1N1 (swine); MERS; H7N9 (avian); so there can be very little excuse in the USA for the lack of pre-outbreak preparation. And of course the UK government was also acquainted with the possible dangers of a further epidemic becoming fully global. The UK National Security Strategy, in 2008 noted that;

“Experts agree that there is a high probability of a pandemic occurring – and that, as the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak showed, the speed at which it could spread has increased with globalisation”.

Other countries had their own versions of prior ‘be ready’ health warnings or those provided by the World Health Organisation via their briefings. So it would seem that common decency should initiate an apology from anyone in government or high office – in any country – who despite such warnings failed to make adequate preparations. Indeed, you would think that the failure to have sufficient stocks of basic personal protection, equipment and testing kits for front line staff and ancillary workers would warrant resignation by anyone with an ounce of integrity.

But despite many more deaths than would have occurred with good preparations, not even a hint of an apology has surfaced in government briefings or statements nationally or internationally. Even the irony and embarrassment of the UK having to order low tech items like face masks and plastic gowns from sources such as China (the source of Covid19) and Turkey (!) seems not to have pricked a conscience or two among any elites.

Yet it was the neo-liberal elites who over decades in power have reduced health service funding and stripped countries in the west of their own manufacturing capability so that easily produced items such as masks, gowns and swabs could be made as cheaply as possible at the end of an air – miles polluting supply chain. ‘Just in time’ deliveries have become – ‘much too late’ possibilities – and no apologies for this either. What sort of people can’t say sorry for major mistakes?

It is obvious that serious epidemics need a constant supply of protective gear. Shipments from far off countries with delays and internal supply needs is no substitute for local manufacture. Another result of neo-liberal capitalist practice is with regard to prevention.

No Prevention!

It has long been noted that those who invest in production for profit do so without regard to problems ‘external’ to production processes. Problems are only addressed when too large to ignore. Industrial pollution, ecological destruction, climate change, work related injuries and occupational diseases are all preventable, but that would reduced profits. Therefore, capitalists have to be compelled to address these, not by their conscience, but by legislation. It is this mentality which is focused on a cure for viral epidemics rather than prevention.

Hence, the current research for a vaccine, which can be sold to governments and make profits for pharmaceutical establishments. But there is an obvious snag. Vaccines are difficult to manufacture, test, certify and universally apply. Rushed out too soon they can do harm. Even the best vaccines can have serious side effects. Furthermore, Viruses mutate and evolve, some – rapidly. Hence vaccines can be effective only as long as the virus has not sufficiently changed. That approach is a biological arms race and continual vaccine development, like weapons development, is also a source of continuous profit.

However, from a humanist perspective it is much more sensible to also put most resources into preventing viruses, particularly the Zoonotic viruses, which cross from animals to humans. But effective prevention would require quite different relationships between humans and nature, including its many animal species. Mass producing meats and fish for profit has seen the routine use of antibiotic and steroid infused feeding strategies as well as animals packed unnaturally close together so that virus mutation, contamination and spread to humanity is not just regular – but inevitable! Prevention would mean ending such practices.

There is already a division in society between those who recognise that the present mode of production must radically change if humanity is to have a safe future. Moreover, the Covid19 Pandemic has highlighted the degenerate nature of the capitalist system and the inept abilities of the ‘no apology‘ and ‘no prevention‘ elites and supporters. Their future status, profits, high salaries and investment portfolios is as yet more concern to them than the future of the rest of us humans.

To all those who during this Pandemic have come to a pro-humanist realisation, I suggest putting aside any religious and political dogmas and become part of a broad movement arguing for a radical change. After this Covid19 wake-up-call, 2020 and beyond, is surely the period to begin a new campaign for radical change. A revolutionary transformation of the remaining capitalist enterprises and their replacement by egalitarian, cooperative public services is clearly needed.

Is there really not an urgent need for a society tailored to meet fundamental human needs – for everybody – and also designed to be ecologically sustainable?

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2020)

Three scenarios.

Since most governments ignored medical science warnings of a coming Pandemic, most countries have fallen back on various forms of hasty Plan B’s. These have involved lock downs, citizen isolation’s and quarantines of various kinds and duration’s. The effects have been to stop many kinds of economic activity except (as yet) essential food supplies, water, heating, electrical power and sewage. Economically, this has had the same effect as a global General Strike of workers but in this case motivated, authorised and part-funded by ruling elites.

Although unevenly distributed, the reduction of income and expenditure has been international. Government bailouts have been in the form of loans and percentages of previous incomes. Exceptions aside, those already struggling prior to lock down will therefore be in debt and those already in debt will be more so. That applies to employed, self-employed, unemployed and businesses. Hence in many countries speculation is rife about how soon ‘life’ will return to some kind of working ‘normal’. In this regard, it is worth considering three possible scenarios and outcomes for ending restrictions.

1 Before reliable and extended testing. It is clear that until a reliable test is widely conducted no one knows who has the Covid-19 virus or has had it and thus likely to spread it. This means that some percentage of those going back to work or beginning to socially congregate – before such testing – will inevitably spread the virus even if masked and practicing regular hand washing.

It would only take one or two lax persons to leave a trail of aerosol droplets in communal spaces or virus-containing hand debris on community sited handles, buttons, documents, food, counters etc., to attach itself to more than one other person (who even if immune) might thus deposit it elsewhere. That chain could potentially set off at least another localised epidemic. If due to the current lock-down and self-isolation a high percentage of citizens are not immune, then the infection figures could rise again along with a further percentage of hospitalisations and deaths.

Many businesses, for various reasons, will still not re-open at this point and therefore not re-employ workers. Many will not wish to risk catching the virus by returning to work or socialising too soon. Some will also not want to work or socialise with masks on and at distance from each other. Many businesses having collapsed may never re-open. Economic activity will therefore return but at very low levels.

Moreover, if due to premature lifting of restrictions, another serious spike in infections occurs, then isolation etc., will be re-instated all at a time when health service staff and resources would be exhausted and depleted.

2 After extensive good quality testing. In this case those tested positive and presumed not to be carrying and shedding viruses can return to work (if its available) and to socialising with others similarly positive. Whilst paying off any accrued debts those then in work can become purchasers of more than basic food stuffs. Those tested negative will need to continue isolation or risk picking up the virus in one of its mild or extreme forms. Those not tested will face the same dilemma as those testing negative. Some will and some won’t return to work or socialising.

All those who don’t find work will also have to deal with mounting debt whilst on benefits.

By that time more small businesses and some large ones will have been bankrupted or downsized and others will have cutback on staff, to lower costs and/or repay debts. Therefore, the unemployed figures will have risen, poverty will have increased and overall purchasing power still low. Even those businesses and sole traders who managed to survive during lock down will be faced with reduced customers and low margins. Economic activity will not be an upward spiral.

And still no vaccine yet! So no return to ‘normal‘ – if normal is envisaged as pre- 2020 levels of simmering crisis in social care, education, local government, financial bubbles and speculation, political corruption, air, land and water pollution and ecological destruction. All these were steadily ratcheting up and heading on crisis trajectories. Covid-19 merely interrupted their paths before they became disasters.

3. After a successful vaccination programme. The vast majority of citizens of countries who eventually carry out mass vaccination programmes will no longer need to socially isolate – but global trade will not have fully recovered. Consequently unemployment will remain high and demand for high-value products insufficient to stimulate large-scale employment. Capitalist investors will know that.

Apart from a few the rest will engage in financial speculation. Inflating financial bubbles will do little to stimulate jobs or trade.

And importantly none of the pre Covid19 problems referenced above will have been solved. Precarious employment, food-banks, low pay, high personal debt, social care problems, student debt, increasing drug dependence, crime, asylum seekers, economic migrants, political instability and yes still under-resourced health services. All these pre – Covid19 symptoms will have been intensified by the global shut down. Then there are the Covid19 ‘bail-out’ additions to the huge pre-2020 government debt levels.

Debt which isn’t cancelled will have to be serviced, by individuals and countries, the latter from a physical tax base reduced even further by Covid19 created unemployment and bankruptcies. Even the best post-vaccination scenario will be worse for many people, including large numbers of the middle-class, when good jobs and investment funds decrease. Even in the ‘advanced’ countries, the rest of 2020 and 2021 will not return to a normality most people would wish for. Not under the present mode of production.

Finally.

After Covid19 lock-down, working people will therefore be faced with campaigning for a new egalitarian and ecological mode of production, valuing all workers and adequately preparing societies for the next crisis (or future Pandemic) or being driven back to 1930’s levels of poverty by the return of elite-orchestrated authoritarian capitalism. Either way, 21st century economic and social logic suggests that normal will not be returning soon.

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2020)

[For an interesting parallel to what faces us consider a short article on the novel ‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus at  http://threewayfight.blogspot.com/2020/03/no-longer-merely-metaphor-re-reading.html ]