But maybe democracy can.
I am not of the opinion that capitalism is inherently evil. It’s a system, after all, and I have always subscribed to the notion that the line between good and evil runs through the heart of every human being. A system can be flawed. A system can be good or bad at accomplishing certain ends which themselves can be good or evil. But I don’t think a system in and of itself should be described in moral terms—only its impact should be described that way.
Our most recent health and economic crisis has exposed for all to see the fact that capitalism is not built for handling a crisis like this or crises in general. I want to look at why.
On the health care front, we have for profit health care in the United States. Private insurers and private practices want to make money. I would add that our capitalist education system adds to this incentive. If you’re a doctor you probably have more than a hundred thousand dollars in debt before you even get started. You couldn’t afford to do pro bono work if you wanted to.
Not only has this left millions uninsured, it has also meant that even those with insurance often can’t afford to use it. But beyond that our system is abhorrently bad at preparing for a crisis because there’s no money in that.
In a society that measures everything by quarterly profits and earnings, why would you spend money on ventilators that have a very low probability of being used (and billed for) in any given quarter? Why would you build reserve or emergency hospital space...just in case? In fact in the town where I grew up they just closed one of the TWO hospitals there this year because it was more “efficient” to just go down to one. Maybe it could be reopened and used but not quickly. I’m sure that town is not the only place.
There’s no profit in stocking up on testing kits. No profit in having extras of things. In fact, in a perverse way, it would be more profitable to have those items when there is NOT a surplus so you can be like the guy who hoarded hand sanitizer to price gouge people on Amazon later.
But beyond the health care problems, capitalism is not built to handle an economic crisis either. It always requires massive government intervention to recover. It might be safe for everyone to stay home from work right now but what about the bills? I’m lucky to be working from home (for now) and part of what I did this week was reach out to some participants in a group I run. A full quarter of the group work in the restaurant field and they have all been laid off until further notice. While the administration asks states to just not say how many people applied for unemployment this week, it might be as many as 2.25 million who do in a single week.
Unemployment funds are not ready for that and can’t cope with that. What we and our employers pay each check in unemployment insurance doesn’t come close to covering the cost of crisis. The Treasury Department is talking about 20 percent unemployment, something we have not seen the Great Depression. And now even Mitt Romney is sounding like Andrew Yang.
And why is that? It’s because a crisis like the current only lays bare all the failings of this late capitalist system. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, not sorry for the pun. Because the ultimate crisis that capitalism absolutely cannot deal with is the climate crisis. That’s happening at a slow boil and corporate boards are completely unwilling to make major changes in the here and now that would affect quarterly earnings so that we can, you know, have a planet later.
But while a free capitalist market is a complete an utter failure at handling any of these crises, be they health related, economic, or climate related, I do believe that democracy CAN not only cope with but surmount these crises IF we understand that democracy is something we need for the economy and health care as well.
We don’t just need a bailout or a stimulus. We need deep structural reform. This crisis might just be the moment to start demanding it for ourselves and for each other.