Monday, March 23, 2020

Socialism is the Cure to the Capitalist Plague

Humanity is faced with another in what has been a series of crises from the impending catastrophe of climate change to brutal armed conflicts creating mass exoduses of peoples. The Covid-19 pandemic is the latest.  It is leading to the potential collapse of the world economy. It is a crisis where whole populations are having to change their behaviour, to stop travelling, to stay at home and to support others in the community. Obliged by circumstances people are re-examine our lives, something the environmentalists with their proposed life-style changes tried to do but so far failed to succeed in. Although we are concerned about our immediate future in the short term term, re-accessing our way of living could be potentially liberating, an opportunity for social change in the way our society runs and decides its priorities. People now are  beginning to recognise the need for a new way of living and a fundamental change in the status quo.  The natural” order has been found to be unnatural.

Despite all manner of frantic policy initiatives, governments are no longer in in control of events. Widespread chaos  intensifying, affecting not just public health but disrupting the very basis of capitalism itself. Stock markets crash,  businesses collapse and the global supply chains are broken. Countries take unilateral action without international consultation or consensus.

Welcome or not, even those in the seats of power now understand that this crisis could force the changes that they have dreaded in the past and are now long over-due to protect civilisation. The Covid-19 crisis can potentially change everything. A coordinated response is now demanded, cooperation on a global scale and no more competition or nationalism. A united humanity putting people and our planet first.

For sure this pandemic will pass but we must if we embrace the opportunity it has offered, that gives us a real chance that afterwards our daily lives will be fundamentally changed forever and for the better. We can re-imagine how we can live in harmony with one another. When the Covid-19 scare has passed, we should work together for a different economic system  a different social system. We need to make sure that what we get is a society upgrade that benefits everyone. We need socialism where we eliminate poverty, hunger, destitution, those social ill which are harbingers of plagues.

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