As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, Hamid Alizadeh (editor of www.marxist.com) discusses how capitalism and the ruling class are completely incapable of addressing the crisis.
Healthcare systems across the world are overstretched and underfunded, decimated by years of austerity. Working-class families - already struggling to make ends meet - now face months of uncertainty about where their next paycheque will come from. And financial contagion threatens to spread, as households and businesses default on debts. Desperate to keep production going, and profits flowing, big business politicians are dragging their heels.
The measures proposed by world leaders such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are completely inadequate for tackling the epidemic. We need to plan and take bold socialist measures to stop the virus and its impacts. But capitalism is anarchy; it is barbarism. It is, in the words of Lenin, 'horror without end'. This crisis, however, will have a dramatic effect on consciousness, as anger accumulates amongst workers against the out-of-touch establishment and elites. This, Hamid explains, will have revolutionary consequences for the period ahead.