Chomsky: Ventilator Shortage Exposes the Cruelty of Neoliberal Capitalism

OVID-19 has taken the world by storm. Hundreds of thousands are infected (possibly many times more than the confirmed cases), the list of dead is growing exponentially longer, and capitalist economies have come to a standstill, with a global recession now virtually inevitable.

The pandemic had been predicted long before its appearance, but actions to prepare for such a crisis were barred by the cruel imperatives of an economic order in which “there’s no profit in preventing a future catastrophe,” Noam Chomsky points out in this exclusive interview for Truthout. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics at MIT and laureate professor at the University of Arizona, author of more than 120 books and thousands of articles and essays. In the interview that follows, he discusses how neoliberal capitalism itself is behind the U.S.’s failed response to the pandemic

IMO, Chomsky is correct about the cause being what he cal neoliberal capitalism.

What is his big error, is to think the government is the remedy.

It decidedly is not.

The partial remedy is a classical financial system of a reasonbly regulated free market with emphasis on small corporate entities with the consumer a stakeholder, not just capital and management.

And more.

I do not think either party would have welcomed such an expenditure in advance of this plague. Preparedness, even though quintessential to an informed people, does not sell among the many of either party.

But that is exactly my point. There is no profit to think this way. But it is worse than just the politicians. The agencies all have their budgets set. These are career bureaucrats who serve across many political administrations. It is their job to do it right and be prepared for it, and for the most part they are insulated from penalty by their unions and their cohorts who don't take kindly to outside intrusion into their mazes. They are a lobby into themselves. So for the most part there is no "loss" in preparing - say $140 million spent over 10 years to keep stashing away essential supplies because they know the likelihood of this eventuality is 100% at some point.

But they have been infected too, and infiltrated by sycophants and inside these agencies the rewards go to those who play ball. There is no personal profit to go against the groupthink. So when the thinker writes a paper on epidemic readiness that will cost $10 million a year, it gets filed away. It would be totally opaque if the CDC spent $50 million a year to just stash a warehouse full of PPEs in the middle of rural Kansas. They have a budget in the many billions; along with the HHS and FDA etc you're talking tens of billions every year. And with all their resources they still fail at the primary mission because they have taken on mission creep. The CDC gets to decide what is a disease, and then decide how much to spend on researching it. The FDA gets to decide what constitutes a drug and how it must be studied and how can be used by both direct and indirect action, not the patients or doctors or inventors. They all have no profit in doing the right thing, they profit by doing what is most expedient and immediately pleasing or what the 'rule book' says without regard to the consequences - the 'equal and opposite reaction' that must occur as a result of their every intervention.

This is a case where we let the front door wide open, and then we act surprised that all our fortune was stolen.

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