No I think you're right, Alan, fear of getting the virus isn't the overriding factor for the ruling class, despite what I might say tongue in cheek. I suspect it's fear of a collapse of the social order. Capitalism remains stable as long as populations are docile and do what they're told, but that requires a quid pro quo from the rich to provide general amenities, food, healthcare, power, income to cover rent and mortgages, security, internet etc etc. You can always starve or deny a proportion of the population but not all of it simultaneously, and certainly not globally. The spectre that's haunting their minds must be massive social disorder. No wonder they're panicking. I'd be panicking too if I was them, with visions of my Old Etonian chums hanging from lampposts. If that seems exaggerated let's remember that the ruling class is the class-conscious class. They know what's in store for them if the 99% rise against them. Whether they're right to see this as an existential threat to the capitalist system I don't know, but they must be thinking that if they fuck this up, they could be facing revolution in country after country from desperate workers who have nothing to lose. We like to say that workers are just two wage slips away from the dole queue. Perhaps we should add that workers are just three dinners away from the barricades.
Paddy
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On 28/03/2020 17:15, alan johnstone via Groups.Io wrote:
I'm happy to concede, Paddy, and have said elsewhere, that I am quite baffled by the ruling class's response to COVID-19. I take on board your explanation that they are concerned generally about their own vulnerability to a public health issue but I am still not sure if it is the deciding factor.
Indeed the wealthy might have their lives at risk but it has never been at nearly the same rate as the poor. They have been generally symptomless and have, of course, access to testing and better healthcare.
Historically they have been able to escape seasonal threats by re-locating as in the hill-stations of India but now in Europe even the ski-resorts of the rich was no escape being the suspect origin of Britain's and Germany's patients zero.
Is it because they fear they might be infected that they have responded so dramatically? In fact it is the privileged class that appear to be spreading it in the developing and undeveloped world.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52023147
“The social class who is ill at the moment are the upper-middle and upper classes, and that’s why we haven’t yet seen a sustained transmission rate,” says Dr Beatriz Perondi, who heads the disaster and emergency committee at São Paulo’s Hospital das Clinicas, the largest public hospital in Latin America. “Once they start spreading the virus to the middle and lower classes, that’s when we are going to have issues with quarantine. With lots of people living in the same room, that could cause huge transmission problems.”
For once, the down-trodden and under-paid have now had their importance shown to the smooth running of society, and that will be a very much a lingering effect of this emergency. We will not forget who the key workers are.
It has also exposed the extent that society can go in changing the course of daily life previously normally reserved for all-out wars. Will climate change bring similar responses? I'm not so sure it will, even if the wealthy will also suffer from it consequences, but my lesson is that capitalism is capable of far-reaching adaptation when called for.
The operating laws of capitalism may be suspended for several weeks and perhaps several months but they cannot be broken permanently - hence the growing voices albeit still minority now saying lets return to normalcy and accept the inevitable deaths as the price worth paying
One thing I am fairly certain of, and it is that the boss class have not been contaminated by a bad case of humanitarianism.
