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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">We Won’t Go Back to Normal, Because Normal Was the Problem: The Thirteenth Newsletter (2020)</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">March 26, 2020</div>
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<span><a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/es/newsletterissue/boletin-13-2020-nuevo-orden-mundial/"><span>Español</span></a></span></p>
<p>Dear Friends,</p>
<p>Greetings from the desk of the <a href="http://thetricontinental.org/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=010fd54daf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-010fd54daf-" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</a>.</p>
<p>It is hard to remember that just a few weeks ago, the planet was in
motion. There were protests in Delhi (India) and Quito (Ecuador),
eruptions against the old order that ranged from anger at the economic
policies of austerity and neoliberalism to frustration with the cultural
policies of misogyny and racism. Ingeniously, in Santiago (Chile),
during its wave after wave of protests, someone projected a powerful
slogan onto the side of a building: ‘we won’t go back to normal, because
normal was the problem’. Now, in the midst of the novel coronavirus, it
seems impossible to imagine a return to the old world, the world that
left us so helpless before the arrival of these deadly microscopic
particles. Waves of anxiety prevail; death continues to stalk us. If
there is a future, we say to each other, it cannot mimic the past.</p>
<p>Certainly, the coronavirus is a serious matter and certainly its
spread is a consequence of its own danger to the human body; but there
are social issues here that bear serious thought. Key to any discussion
has to be the sheer collapse of State institutions in most of the
capitalist world, where these institutions have been privatised, and
where private institutions have operated to minimise costs and maximise
profit.</p>
<p>This is most clear in the health sector, where public health
institutions have been underfunded, where medical care has been
transferred to private corporations, and where private hospitals and
clinics operate without any surge capacity. This means that there are
simply not enough hospital beds or medical equipment (masks,
ventilators, etc.) and that the nurses, doctors, paramedics, janitors,
and others on the front line are forced to operate in conditions of
acute scarcity, in many cases without basic protection. It is often the
people who make the least who are putting the most at stake to save
lives in the face of the rapidly spreading pandemic. When a global
pandemic strikes, the private-sector austerity model simply falls apart.</p>
<p>Furthermore, our economic system has been so completely tilted to
favour the financial sector and the plutocracy that it has – for a long
time – simply ignored the growth of large-scale and permanent precarious
employment, underemployment, and unemployment. This is not a problem
created by the coronavirus or by the collapse of oil prices; this is a
structural problem for which a term – <em>precariat</em>, or precarious
proletariat – was invented at least a decade ago. With lockdowns and
social isolation, small businesses have shuttered, and precarious
workers find that their precarity defines them entirely. Even the most
hardened bourgeois politicians are now forced to confront the reality of
two points:</p>
<ol><li>That workers exist. The State-imposed general strike to prevent the
spread of the virus and its consequences have proved that it is workers
who produce value in our society and not ‘entrepreneurs’ who generate
ideas, which they claim fancifully produces wealth. A world without
workers is a world that halts.</li><li value="2">That the share of global wealth and income that workers
control is now so low that they have limited reserves when their
hard-earned incomes collapse. In the United States, one of the
wealthiest countries in the world, a 2018 Federal Reserve <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2018-dealing-with-unexpected-expenses.htm?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=010fd54daf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-010fd54daf-" rel="noopener noreferrer">study</a>
found that 40% of US households do not have the means to deal with
unexpected expenses of around $400. The situation is not much better in
the European Union, where the Eurostat <a href="https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKMARK_DS-056352_QID_503C10F4_UID_-3F171EB0&layout=TIME,C,X,0;GEO,L,Y,0;HHTYP,L,Z,0;INCGRP,L,Z,1;UNIT,L,Z,2;INDICATORS,C,Z,3;&zSelection=DS-056352INCGRP,TOTAL;DS-056352HHTYP,TOTAL;DS-056352UNIT,PC;DS-056352INDICATORS,OBS_FLAG;&rankName1=HHTYP_1_2_-1_2&rankName2=UNIT_1_2_-1_2&rankName3=INDICATORS_1_2_-1_2&rankName4=INCGRP_1_2_-1_2&rankName5=TIME_1_0_0_0&rankName6=GEO_1_0_0_1&sortR=ASC_-1_FIRST&sortC=ASC_-1_FIRST&rStp=&cStp=&rDCh=&cDCh=&rDM=true&cDM=true&footnes=false&empty=false&wai=false&time_mode=ROLLING&time_most_recent=false&lang=EN&cfo=%23%23%23%2C%23%23%23.%23%23%23&lang=en&utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=010fd54daf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-010fd54daf-" rel="noopener noreferrer">data</a>
shows that 32% of households cannot bear unexpected expenses. That is
why in the capitalist States there is now openly talk of widespread
income support – even a Universal Basic Income – to manage the collapse
of livelihoods and to stimulate consumer demand.</li></ol>
<p>Last week, the International Peoples Assembly and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research released a 16-point <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/declaration-covid19/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=010fd54daf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-010fd54daf-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">programme</a>
for this complex moment. A concatenation of crises has struck us: there
are the long-term structural crises of capitalism (decline in the rate
of profit, low rates of investment in the productive sector,
underemployment and precarious employment), and there are the short-term
conjunctural crises (collapse of the price of oil, the coronavirus).</p>
<p>It is now widely recognised, even by the investment houses, that the
strategy for recovery from the 2008-09 financial crisis is not going to
work; pumping large amounts of cash into the banking sector will not
help. Directed investments are necessary in areas that had previously
faced serious austerity cuts – areas such as health care, including
public health, and income support. Manuel Bertoldi of <em>Frente Patria Grande</em> (Argentina) and I make the <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/03/22/the-cost-of-this-pandemic-must-not-bankrupt-the-people/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=010fd54daf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-010fd54daf-" rel="noopener noreferrer">case</a>
for a serious debate around these issues. More than a debate about each
separate policy, we need a debate about the very nature of how to
understand the State and its institutions.</p>
<p>A key achievement of austerity capitalism has been to delegitimise
the idea of State institutions (notably those that improve the
well-being of the population). In the West, the typical attitude has
been to attack the government as an enemy of progress; to shrink
government institutions – except the military – has been the goal. Any
country with a robust government and State structure has been
characterised as ‘authoritarian’.</p>
<p>But this crisis has shaken that certainty. Countries with intact
State institutions that have been able to handle the pandemic – such as
China – cannot be easily dismissed as authoritarian; a general
understanding has come that these governments and their State
institutions are instead efficient. Meanwhile, the States of the West
that have been eaten into by austerity policies are now fumbling to deal
with the crisis. The failure of the austerity health care system is now
clearly visible. It is impossible to make the case any longer that
privatisation and austerity are more efficient than a system of State
institutions that are made efficient over time by the process of trial
and error.</p>
<p>The coronavirus has now crept into Palestine; most alarmingly, there
is at least one case in Gaza, which is one of the world’s largest
open-air prisons. The Palestinian Communist poet Samih al-Qasim
(1939-2014) used to call his homeland the ‘great prison’, from whose
isolation he gifted his luminous poetry. One of his poems, ‘Confession
at Midday’, offers a brief journey into the emotional damage done to the
world by austerity and neoliberalism:</p>
<blockquote><p>I planted a tree<br>
I scorned the fruit<br>
I used its trunk as firewood<br>
I made a lute<br>
And played a tune</p>
<p>I smashed the lute<br>
Lost the fruit<br>
Lost the tune<br>
I wept over the tree</p></blockquote>
<p>The coronavirus has only just begun to make its impact on India,
whose public health system has been deeply eroded by a generation of
neoliberal economic policies. Within India, the state of Kerala
(population 35 million) – governed by the Left Democratic Front – is in
the midst of a deeply campaign to tackle the coronavirus – as Subin
Dennis, a researcher at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social
Research, and I make clear in this <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/03/24/an-often-overlooked-region-of-india-is-a-beacon-to-the-world-for-taking-on-the-coronavirus/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=010fd54daf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-010fd54daf-" rel="noopener noreferrer">report</a>.
Our findings suggest that Kerala has certain in-built advantages and
that it has put in place measures that are worthy of study.</p>
<p><span class="gmail-caption">How is Kerala tackling the Coronavirus pandemic?</span></p>
<ol><li>Kerala’s Left governments over the past several decades have fought to maintain and even extend the public health system.</li><li>Kerala’s Left parties and organisations have helped develop a culture of organisation, solidarity, and public action.</li><li>Kerala’s Left government was swift in enacting measures to trace
those infected by the virus through ‘contact tracing’ and testing at
transportation hubs.</li><li>The Chief Minister and Health Minister held daily press conferences
that calmly provided the public with credible information and an
analysis of the crisis and unfolding events.</li><li>The slogan ‘Break the Chain’ captures the attempt by the government
and by society to enforce forms of physical isolation, quarantine, and
treatment to prevent the spread of the virus.</li><li>The slogan ‘Physical Distance, Social Unity’ underlines the
importance of raising resources to assist those in economic and
psychological distress.</li><li>Public action – led by trade unions, youth groups, women’s
organisations, and cooperatives – of cleaning and preparing supplies has
lifted the spirit of the people, encouraging them to trust in social
unity and not to fragment into trauma.</li><li>Finally, the government announced a relief package worth Rs. 20,000
crores, which includes loans to families through the women’s cooperative
Kudumbashree, higher allocations for a rural employment guarantee
scheme, two months of pension payments to the elderly, free food grains,
and restaurants to provide food at subsidised rates. Utility payments
for water and electricity as well as interest on debt payments will be
suspended.</li></ol>
<p>This is a rational and decent programme; it, along with the 16-point
plan, should be studied and adopted elsewhere. To dither is to play with
the lives of people.</p>
<p>Colombia has implemented a national nineteen-day quarantine.
Meanwhile, in prisons in Colombia, inmates held a protest against
overcrowding and bad health facilities, fearing the death count if
coronavirus breaches the walls; the crackdown by the State led to the
death of twenty-three people. This is a fear in prisons around the
world.</p>
<p>Meanwhile on 19 March, Marco Rivadeneira, an important leader of the
agricultural worker and peasant movement in Colombia, was in a meeting
with peasants in the municipality of Puerto Asís. Three armed men burst
into the meeting, seized Marco, and <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/03/20/colombian-movements-denounce-the-assassination-of-peasant-leader-marco-rivadeneira/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=010fd54daf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-010fd54daf-" rel="noopener noreferrer">assassinated him</a>.
He is one of more than a hundred leaders of popular movements who has
been assassinated this year in Colombia, and one of eight hundred
murdered since 2016 when the civil war was suspended. As Tricontinental:
Institute for Social Research <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/peace-neoliberalism-and-political-shifts-in-colombia/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=010fd54daf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-010fd54daf-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dossier no. 23</a>
(December 2019) shows, this violence is a direct consequence of the
unwillingness of the oligarchy to allow history to advance. They want to
return to a ‘normal’ situation that benefits them. But Marco wanted to
create a new world. He was killed for the hope that motivated him.</p>
<p>Warmly,<br>
Vijay.</p>
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