Robert Kuttner in The American Prospect newsletter on 10 Good Things from COVID-19...
Sometimes, epidemics create massive social and political change; sometimes not.
The Black Death of the 14th century so decimated the European population that it created worker shortages and hastened the end of serfdom. But the great flu pandemic of 1918-1919, which caused about 700,000 U.S. deaths, changed just about nothing.
COVID seems in the category of pandemic that could change everything. Herewith, a list of realities demanding change that COVID has thrown into relief:
Ten: Health Disparities. Some 40 million workers will lose their employer-provided health coverage, just when they need health care most. We always knew our system was nuts. COVID provides the exclamation point.
Nine: Climate. The air is a lot cleaner, thanks to reduced economic activity. Imagine what we could do, proactively, without the perversity of a pandemic-induced depression.
Eight: Low-Wage Work. We knew that low-wage work was a travesty. COVID has put a human face on grossly underpaid "essential workers." During the pandemic, and afterward, they need substantial raises.
Seven: The Crisis of Child Care and Care Workers.
Four: For-Profit Drugs and Vaccines. They were always a costly, inefficient disgrace. COVID could stimulate putting all this in the public and nonprofit sector.
Three: The Sheer Economic Waste of Business as Usual. Turns out we don’t need all those office towers and malls.
Two: Structural Racism. It took a pandemic to finally create a national, multiracial movement for revolutionary change.
One: Wait for it … Donald Trump! Our president could make up facts on multiple fronts, but he can’t lie his way out of an in-your-face pandemic that finally demolishes his pretension to leadership.
Now: Will Joe Biden seize the moment? Will we, in the spirit of FDR, "make him do it?"
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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Robert Kuttner’s latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy.
God help working parents when schools open with split shifts alternating between live and virtual. We need a reliable, comprehensive child care system—decently paid, too.
Six: The Value of Public Institutions. The private sector just can’t fix this, much less the profit motive. It’s all about social solidarity.
Five: How Wall Street Always Wins. Even in a pandemic, Wall Street profits while others suffer. Maybe COVID will trigger long-overdue reform.