ALB
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“Could it be that the writers of the Torygraph and the Spectacularly Boring are making the case for an end to lockdown because working class lives matter less than profit?“
Of course and it’s a bit surprising that a socialist should be echoing the propaganda of a business lobby whose objective is to get profit-making going again irrespective of the number of extra deaths this could and probably would mean.
For the moment the government seems to be fulfilling its duty to the capitalist class as a whole by looking after their long term overall interest (as opposed to giving into to sectional interests) ie putting longer term profit-making prospects ahead of immediate short term profits.
Of course as when a war occurs those who supply bombs, guns, tanks, uniforms etc prosper and profiteer (make extra profits) despite the government trying to stop itself getting ripped off. This is probably happening now with medical equipment and supplies. Normal under capitalism. That’s how private “entrepreneurs” are supposed to behave. They pursue their personal interest and the invisible hand ensures we all benefit. Pull the other one, Adam (Smith).
I was talking only about shopkeepers owning or running “convenience stores” not all small shopkeepers. But you’re right, barbers and beauty parlours are not so happy. The supermarkets have benefitted too of course, and not just from online sales.
Just been to my local corner shop and the price of one egg has gone up from 25p last week to 30p. Some small shopkeepers must love lockdown or, rather, closedown of non essential workplaces.
Where this sort of thing can lead (from yesterday’s Times):
“Death threats over 5G
Telecoms engineers have received death threats from people who falsely believe that the development of 5G technology is causing the spread of coronavirus. Andy Kerr, deputy general secretary of the Communications Workers Union, said that most of the engineers involved in the 120 cases of abuse were not even working on 5G. The threats follow a spate of arson attacks on masts.”
There is an upside to this in that it has forced the media (except one airhead presenter) to give space to refuting this mistaken view.
And aren’t you being a bit un-Marxist by using a 19thC term defining gig and uber workers as “petty-bourgeois” because they are legally and technically independent self-employed artisans and are protesting at the restrictions being imposed on their livelihoods
Probably but it wasn’t me that introduced the term (I don’t like the term because of the way Leninists, real and cartoon, bandy it about). I was trying to work out who he might have had in mind. It turns out that he wasn’t talking about a particular socio-economic group but of an “ideology” that can be held by anyone, even wage workers; which makes it an even more unhelpful term, like “middle class”.
Ironically one group that is benefiting economically from the lockdown is small shopkeepers. (Others are capitalist enterprises making extra profits from supplying medical equipment and supplies.)
“Politicians respond with panic ; what can we do,
Responsible epidemiologists say “fuck all”.
Not even that Swedish professor says that. His case is that a general lockdown isn’t necessary, but still protect the vulnerable. Even you weren’t planning to invite the over 60s to your measles party.
But would “the poor” be any better off if there wasn’t a lockdown? Or, come to think of it, are the “petty bourgeois” garden-owners better off with it? I wonder how many of the current 6 million unemployed in Britain have gardens? And it is the self-employed (the Marxian definition of “petty bourgeoisie”) who are complaining loudly about the loss of income and being ruined by the lockdown.
You are not saying, are you, that the workers of the so-called “First World” are “privileged and pampered” ?
In any event, the “poor” (in the popular sense) are only a section of the section of the working class (properly defined).
Blaming the rich for spreading the virus is populism and in the same category as blaming the Chinese for starting it.
See tonight on Discord for the talk this evening at 6.30 GMT from the comrade in Las Vegas even if it is the middle of the night for you.
p.s. Dave, do you want an invite to join so you can listen to the EC meeting on Sunday 3 May?
“Lockdowns are class-based more than we are willing to admit. If I was ungenerous, I could say it is the “middle-class” protecting themselves from the great unwashed poor.”
This would not only be ungenerous but unMarxist ! It would be to divide the working class into two sections and setting one section against the other.
It also introduces a rather novel class division — between those with gardens and those without one. There will be millions of people surprised to find themselves denounced as “middle class” just because they have a garden. The sort of thing you would expect from Ian Bone’s “Class War” rather than something we could say.
What you are pointing to is one of the perverse effects of a lockdown under capitalism, not a case for not having a lockdown to deal with a pandemic of an infectious disease — even under capitalism.
So that people here can get a flavour of some of the conspiracy theories circulating, here’s a email we’ve received at Head Office (from someone in fact who is a subscriber to the Socialist Standard):
“The Covid-19 lockdown is a global power grab – pure and simple. The incremental steps towards a new world order has taken a giant stride forward with no going back. Economies worldwide have been destroyed by governments during a period when deaths globally are at normal levels. As science journalist, Peter Andrews, states, “Covid-19’s meant to be a new Black Death, but in Britain no more people are dying than normal. What does this say about the virus?” As Dr John Lee, a recently retired NHS consultant and professor of pathology says, writing in the Spectator, ‘’We have yet to see any statistical evidence for excess deaths, in any part of the world’’. So what’s it all about? It’s a false flag emergency that has been opportunistically created to curtail civil liberties across the planet, to roll out the globalist agenda at a faster pace (see Agenda 30, World Government Summit, etc).”
As reported into today’s Times, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs. is calling for a gradual, step-by-step easing of restrictions to begin within two to three weeks, so as to enable the economy to recover more easily, adding nonchalantly :
“That inevitably will mean that there will be, at each time, more Coronavirus cases. And we just have to accept that.”
Talk about profit before people.
A reformist Social Democratic Party. Seen that. It’s the past and it doesn’t work.
In America the word “socialism” has come to mean government ownership and control of the economy — a misconception we have spent the last century trying to combat. The only saving grace of this is that in bringing the word into prominence it gives us a foot in the door to say what socialism really means.
“they should have locked all the vulnerable away and had measles parties for the under 60’s with no underlying medical conditions.”
I was going to suggest that that was the logic of the Swedish professor’s position but thought that might be going too far. But, now you have raised it, why don’t you set out to deliberately catch it. That would be a noble contribution — perhaps even sacrifice — to help achieve herd immunity.
If they don’t find an effective vaccine the only way to overcome it will be the herd becoming immune, which implies that many will die. It would just be a question of when: sooner or later ?
It seems that the government’s policy here is in effect to try to delay the spread until a vaccine is found. That way less people can be expected to die.
The Swedish government (and the government here originally) seems to be taking the view that you might as well get the deaths that will occur to get herd immunity over sooner rather than later.
That Swedish professor says that only the frail and elderly should be protected from catching it. Fair enough but the implication is that those of working age should not be protected. Maybe for some the effects of catching it will be relatively mild but clearly not for everyone. Some will die. Already there is talk based on some evidence that the age limit for the those more vulnerable should be reduced from 70 to 65 even 60.
Anyway in Sweden unless you area elderly or frail, it’s “may the most resistant survive”. Hard luck if you are not and don’t. It might work I suppose but.
Actually, Sweden has a track record in allowing mad professors free rein:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/sweden-admits-to-racial-purification-1247261.html%3famp
Come to think of it, consciously pursuing a policy of herd immunity can be seen as a form of eugenics, the survival of the fittest and the elimination of the weakest.
