What a difference a few weeks and a major disease outbreak makes! Not that long ago, if I remember correctly, there was no money for pretty much anything but tax cuts and supports for business. Now, suddenly, there seems to be cash aplenty, to be sure, mainly for the rich, but with a substantial amount for social spending as well.
Suddenly our government has our backs after years of bi-partisan neo-liberal lectures on “personal responsibility” and, ahem, “getting government off our backs.” Remember that one? The eternal fantasy of every ruling class that they can buy their way out of the consequences of their greed. Well, reality is coming for that particular dream in the shape of a virus that is hitting the entire species with terrifying speed.
Suddenly it seems to be important to our governments to clean up some of the festering social problems they’ve essentially ignored for years. The refuse heaps where capitalism tosses human beings who are no longer profitable, such as old folks homes, and shelters for the homeless and battered women are no longer convenient spots to dump and neglect but possible viral hot spots.
Nothing brings a sense of social responsibility to the ruling class like a threat to its own skin, either from the virus or an angry mob with pitchforks.
The fact is, in the roughly 17 years since the SARS epidemic from which the Canadian government supposedly learned so much, there was no real effort to prepare for another pandemic, not even to compile and maintain a national inventory of emergency medical equipment. Supposedly it was in the best interests of Canada’s future to purchase a pipeline rather than buttress the medical system for the outbreak of some new disease that the government itself warned was inevitable. The rash of emergency social spending now is a race to adjust capitalism’s balance sheet between their profits and our lives before the body count sparks a social explosion.
