“When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.”
Romans 7:19, Living New Testament
There aren’t many times you’ll see biblical quotations from Socialist Alternative, but, this fits, since it aptly describes some of the dilemmas and actions of Justin Trudeau and various others of the more liberal capitalist leaders around the world who are busy improvising responses to the COVID-19 disaster without a plan, and occasionally without a clue.
On March 26, the Canadian government announced the closure of Service Canada offices across the country. For anyone who has never used one of these centres, they provide a one-stop shop for a wide range of federal programs and services located across the country. These are especially vital outside major cities, which lack separate offices for different government departments.
If you don’t have a computer or phone service that allows you to wait on hold for a few hours, these centres are often the only way to apply for E.I. and all the other benefits being rolled out by the government of Canada.
Closing Service Canada’s offices in this sense could be disastrous for tens or hundreds of thousands of Canadians who lack the means to go on line or who face mental or physical challenges requiring some level of personal assistance. On the other hand, keeping them open, in the face of a flood of people seeking help without any real provisions to protect the health of the workers or clients through physical distancing or personal protective equipment, risked creating a huge pool of disease clusters.
Facing this choice, the government decided to keep the centres open. The workers at these operations, who were going to be ordered to put themselves and their families at risk, without protective gear, proper distancing or sanitizing procedures, hazard pay, or even consultation, objected to this plan across the country and forced the shut down.
So here we are. The offices are shut as are most other places with public access computers and/or phone service. In the rapidly evolving situation around COVID-19, large numbers of Canadians, not only will have trouble applying for support, but even knowing what support is available.
Basically, this flows from a lack of planning for a known threat (a coronavirus mutation). Lacking a plan is a completely foreseeable outcome given the priorities of Capitalism. Let’s remember that in the capitalist worldview social good is not a product of our co-operative effort for the mutual benefit of everyone, rather, it is a by-product of the pursuit of personal wealth.
This is a key idea in neoliberal economics and it leads to the common theme among most of our corporate and political leaders that can sort of be summed up as: “We need to allow ToxicSludgeCo to build its nuclear asbestos recycling plant because it will provide the revenue for the social programs Canadians need.” We’ve had over 30 years of the application of these policies in Canada and around the world. The ToxicSludgeCo’s of the world and their owners have done very well. They’ve gotten their tax-breaks, deregulation and bailouts. Wealth inequality in Canada and around the world is at record levels. Most governments have bought into the bizarre assumption that what is good for the obscenely wealthy is good for all of us.
Well, for nearly forty years, WE, ordinary people, whatever our background or political persuasion, have been investors in this vision of Capitalist Paradise. Now, dear Capitalists, we need those social programs that you promised would flow from OUR concessions to build YOUR wealth.
Canadians are getting a cruel lesson in the reality behind this glorious vision. Not only have social programs been slashed to lavish wealth on the wealthiest, but the most elementary precautions to have plans and supplies in place for a predicted emergency have not been taken. Many of us will add our lives and the lives of our loved ones to the stacks of cash that have been, are being, and will be handed over to the people, who, if they didn’t bring us the virus pandemic … enabled and orchestrated the disastrous response to it.
Don’t get me wrong, it could be a lot worse. We could have a lunatic narcissist like Trump, or Bolsonaro, in charge. We have Justin Trudeau who is pretty obviously a leader who is attempting to be a decent human being as well as a guy who keeps the banks happy. Obviously, his first priority was to save the economy by giving the banks a hand. Second, but of course, was to guarantee lots of tax breaks and subsidies to big corporations. Fortunately for the rest of us, either because of his deep compassion, or perhaps his fear of a social explosion, Trudeau didn’t stop there. In addition to the $650 billion (for starters) supporting bankers and big business, on March 25, he announced a series of measures, at a cost $107 billion (for starters), of which $52 billion is to help ordinary Canadians with a series of social support measures that were unthinkable back in the days when governments claimed they had no money.
There do seem to be problems in implementing these social support measures. Of course, there aren’t tons of problems at the top of the food chain. There is, after all a well-practiced government bureaucracy with plenty of experience in bailouts, tax-breaks, etc.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, it’s not quite so easy. Even if you’ve got a computer or a phone there are few details about these programs as well as constantly changing, oh, beg pardon, “evolving” information about eligibility, benefits and ability to apply.
Which takes us back to Services Canada. For people without technology, or who just need help from a human being, Services Canada locations are vital. If we had a government with an actual plan, instead of a series of frantic improvisations whose effectiveness is undercut by their thoughtlessness, we could probably have sorted this out in advance. In this case, a plan for social supports during a pandemic would have made sure services to Canadians, unable to access support in other ways, were in place. The same plan would have included measures to protect the workers at these centres and the people they serve from infection. The simplest way to have worked out a plan like this would have been to consult with medical professionals and, especially, the workers who would be providing this service during difficult times. Here again we run into the kind of capitalist managerial thinking that has crept into public institutions via neoliberal politicians who run government like a (big) business which, among other things, rules out long-range planning or listening to workers’ opinions on pretty much anything.
Well, again, it could be worse. Like a lot of capitalist leaders before him, Trudeau has now got the social gospel when faced with imminent systemic collapse. Measures to actually take care of the basic needs of every Canadian are, if not in place, according to Trudeau at least in the works. The coming weeks and months are going to be very stressful for all of us, but if Trudeau’s promises are kept we’re all going to have lots of time on our hands, especially those of us working two or three jobs normally to make ends meet.
The stresses of trying to stay alive in a system where a person’s right to a decent job with a living wage, real health and safety protections, adequate rest and recreation, etc. is totally subordinated to the right of capital to extract maximum profit usually keep most of us going at a pretty frantic pace. We should all take some of this enforced time off to think about how we can do better next time, because there will be a next time.
This is the third, and most destructive, mutation of coronavirus in the last 20 years to hit the global human population. We know there will be a fourth. When things go back to, um, normal we have a choice of rebuilding the same economy that is responsible for: record breaking profits, all-time market highs, billionaires, low wages, gig work, zero seniority, no benefits, maximum inequality and all the rest. That may not be the normal Trudeau and the born-again acolytes of the social gospel are preaching right now, but then, there’s a chance the end is nigh, and besides, the rousing “we’re all in it together” line is always useful in moments when a lot of ordinary people are going to die whether in war or pandemic.
Rhetoric about social responsibility lasts as long as crisis under capitalism. When the crisis is done, the work begins on giving everything won by working people to better their lives back to its rightful owners: the 1%. While we all sit in isolation hoping to survive, at least until the next pandemic, or until the next financial crisis, or until we just go under in the accelerating climate collapse, we should all reflect on the fact that it doesn’t have to be this way. If we had a government that put top priority on our health and well being, with an economy planned and regulated by workers at every level of society for the common good, we might be able to solve some of the most critical problems facing our species. Unfortunately, we have a system that subordinates the lives of the producers of the world’s wealth to the interests of the owners of that wealth.
While we have time, in every sense of the word, we must consider the glaring fact that we need Socialism before capitalists, including nice ones, kill us all in the hideous collapse of their neoliberal paradise.
