Capitalism Post Coronavirus
Paper Session
Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)
- Chair: Ron Baiman, Benedictine University
A Marxian Analysis of the Cyclical, Structural, and Systemic Dimensions of the COVID19 Crisis
Abstract
The paper provides a Marxian analysis of the current crisis disentangling three different dimensions: cyclical, structural, and systemic. At the brink of 2020, the world economy was on the verge of falling into a new cyclical crisis because of the imbalances accumulated after the 2007-2009 cyclical crisis. However, it was the imposition of extreme measures of containment and health mitigation to face the Covid19 pandemic, with the consequent suspension of many economic activities, what led to an abrupt and deep contraction. The atypical nature of the cyclical trigger of the crisis could also shape its future development; at the time of writing, the possible future for the pandemic and the potential governmental responses are uncertain, and so its impacts on the world economy.Nonetheless, the depth, extension, and consequences of the crisis will be essentially delimited by the same structural contradictions of neoliberal capitalism that led to the Great Recession, of which the current crisis can be considered as an extension. The lack of a structural transformation of the economic, political, and institutional bases of capitalist accumulation, which were preserved due to the vast program of public economic intervention to support the profitability of the financial forms of capital accumulation, led a prolonged cyclical period of stagnated growth. Finally, the pandemic crisis has evidenced the inability of (neoliberal) capitalism to cope with the current health crisis, its inegalitarian and exclusionary –racist, xenophobic, sexist, etc.– facets, and its ecocidal dimension. We are facing a highly complex systemic crisis.
COVID-19s: The Alternative Future to Implementing the Green New Deal (and more)
Abstract
American society experienced historic levels of economic inequality at the start of the Great Depression, thereby contributing to its duration and depth. As we face the COVID-19 pandemic, our nation is experiencing a similar level of wealth inequality. These imbalances can only increase the suffering and impair our capacity to recover from this catastrophe. Our current crisis offers the best argument for why the Green New Deal (and much more) is necessary.Using the Wealth Privilege Model, this paper will identify the structural issues that have created the growing disparities in household wealth. These include federal wealth policies that have lavished hundreds of billions of dollars annually on the rich. Despite an unemployment rate trumpeted by many for its 50-year low, these structural forces and policies have left the vast majority of US households were wholly unprepared for sudden onslaught of the coronavirus.
This paper will examine the state of American households and their balance sheets just prior to the appearance of COVID-19. Using the most recent Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) data available, it will document the restricted options available to most households. More recent snapshots provided by the annual SHED surveys will supplement the SCF’s comprehensive picture. This includes the April 2020 Supplemental SHED survey that asked households about their capacity to absorb unexpected financial penalties as well as their employment prospects. The evidence will show a painfully familiar portrait- those communities hit hardest by the virus have the fewest resources to respond.
Building Equity through Green New Deal Programs Focused on Eliminating Lead Poisoning
Abstract
Pediatric lead poisoning is one of the most studied and persistent issues of environmental and racial injustice facing the United States. Since the problem began to be tracked systematically in through the NHANES survey in the late 1970's great strides have been made at lowering pediatric blood lead levels in the aggregate but disparities continue to compound. Lead poisoning in children continues to take a disproportionate toll on communities of African Americans, Latinx, immigrants and those of lower economic status. A successful Green New Deal must address Environmental and Racial and Economic justice. Confronting lead poisoning has always provided this opportunity as well as providing a robust return on investment (Gould 2009). This paper considers 9 different jobs programs related to addressing this injustice and environmental problem. 1) Universal testing and tracing for pediatric lead poisoning. 2) Provide necessary and ongoing support services for children identified as lead poisoned. 3) Safely removing lead paint from the exterior of housing. 4) Safely removing lead from the interior of housing. 5) Lead service line replacement and the overhaul of ageing municipal water infrastructure. 6) Remediation of lead in soil. 7) Provide restorative justice to older generations suffering from the lifelong effects of lead poisoning. 8) Develop effective and safe recycling strategies for lead loaded products. 9) Prevent the continual poisoning of children by consumer products by the closer oversight of imported products. If the green new deal does not build the equity in disadvantaged communities it will fail.JEL Classifications
- I1 - Health
- B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches