Khushbu Sharma
Almost the entire world is dealing with the wrath of a global pandemic. The corona crisis has exposed the hollowness and inefficiency of the neoliberal and capitalist order to deal with a humanitarian crisis of such a large scale. Neoliberal economies have surrendered in front of the pandemic, leaving poor masses to suffer. The poor and the marginalised, amidst the crisis, crave for a few bread loaves and a roof above their heads, leaving aside quality healthcare. Capitalist economies with their huge fancy promises of progress, development, and welfare are crashing like never before. The question then arises: what is the way out of this crisis and who shows the world this way. While worshippers of neoliberal and bourgeois orders struggle to cope with the various multi pronged challenges posed by the pandemic, socialist states are performing the job well and are becoming torchbearers to show this world the way out of this grave crisis.
Capitalism thrives on profit extraction and severe concentration of wealth. The post-globalisation era is marked by this unidirectional flow of capital from the poor masses to a handful of capitalists, and from the poor, developing economies to giant economies of the western world. This renders both the poor masses and the polities of the third world robbed of their wealth and natural resources. The neoliberal order, marked by this extensive concentration of wealth in a very few hands, is inherently fragile and weak. The global pandemic has unveiled this fragility and weakness for all of us. When China became the epicenter of the corona crisis in January 2020 and thousands of its citizens lost their lives, Donald Trump, the President of the United States and a crusader of neoliberalism, ridiculed the misery of the people of China with his racist and imperialist statements. Coronavirus and its outbreak was called a ‘communist conspiracy’ hatched by China. However, the story was about to take a very different turn. Even after witnessing the destruction caused by the virus in China, champions of capitalism did not pay serious attention to it. The virus knocked on their door soon. Alongwith the free flow of capital and labor took place the free flow of the virus. The world was about to witness the biggest healthcare and humanitarian crisis since decades. Privatised healthcare systems, excessive spending on arms instead of goods of public necessities in capitalist economies added fuel to the fire. Soon arrived the shortage of hospitals, medicines, kits, protective equipment, ventilators all over. And this was not enough. The United States, using its hegemonic status in the global order, diverted all medical supplies and other necessary equipment from the third world and other countries to America. The American President threatened India with retaliation if it did not lift restrictions over the export of a much required drug called Hydroxychloroquine (HCQS). The US’s attempts to alienate Iran during when the world is looking for global solidarity and cooperation are just one more link to the chain. The US reduced its funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) and this comes at a time when the world needs development of healthcare and improved research on medicine like never before. All this reveals the imperialist and parasitic character of a neoliberal order marked by the capitalist hegemony of the United States. The Third World keeps looking for help from more developed nations, helplessly and hopelessly.
While the United States is doing this, there exist socialist and socialistically oriented nations across the globe extending help and cooperation by building material as well as moral transnational solidarity amidst the crisis. Cuba sends its team of doctors to Italy – the worst hit by the crisis; China, after its successful recovery from the havoc, donates equipment and makes other medical necessities available to India, though everybody is aware of the usual bitter and strained relations among these two nations; the Indian state of Kerala, under the leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Pinarayi Vijayan, shows the nation its way out of this crisis.
The curve has been flattened in Kerala. This is not the first time that Kerala has shown excellent results in its fight with healthcare crises. Back in 2019, Kerala successfully dealt with the outbreak of the deadly Nipah Virus. The question then comes to one’s mind: what is so special about this state and its governance that makes it a model in the fight against the pandemic. The socialist ethos of the successive governments in Kerala deserves the credit. Public funded and government regulated healthcare systems, proper allotment and utilisation of funds, paying much attention towards the nutritional needs of the people, and improved educational status, make all the difference. The Health Minister of Kerala, KK Shailaja, a science teacher, is being applauded for handling this crisis effectively. The state has confirmed 396 cases till date, out of which 255 patients have been completely cured and sent back to their homes. This was possible because of the effective control the government machinery has over the healthcare system. The public was put to rigorous testing, tracking the virus, identifying hotspots, and providing the best medical care to those infected by the virus; a proper implementation of the lockdown by ensuring that generous and good quality ration with high nutritional value along with cooked food reach every household. This ruled out any possibility of people facing an unavailability of food and other items which is the case in other states. While the global recovery rate in cases of coronavirus is 22.95 percent, and India stands at 11.43, the Indian state of Kerala shows signs of hope amidst despair by standing at 67.33 percent. All this is about setting priorities right. The success of this state comes from background institutions designed along socialist lines and an efficient communist government.
The plight of migrant workers, laborers, working class, poor, and the marginalised in India and other developing countries lies unhidden. The inequality of wealth and income in neoliberal and capitalist economies is obvious. While corporates sit in their twenty-one storeyed homes and enjoy their weeks of quarantine surrounded by all the worldly comforts, the poor begs for food. As they say, the State now functions as nothing more than an extended arm of the capitalist class. So is the case of the Indian state. Instead of holding corporates and capitalists accountable for the gross exploitation of natural resources and human labor, and putting to use the large shares of their amassed wealth for dealing with the crisis, the State is devising newer shortcuts so that this parasitic class can escape all the aggression and anger produced en masse against them. The ‘PM Cares’ fund is an example of this ‘innovatively’ designed shortcut. Corporate social responsibility is a joke, and the money big capitalist firms and companies provide in the name of CSR is nothing more than crumbs of bread thrown at the downtrodden. Corporates hold the majority of wealth with zero accountability.
The misery of students and the youth is no less disturbing. Students stuck in their campuses, hostels and elsewhere away from their homes, are devoid of scholarships and employment. The weakening of labour laws over time and ineffective trade unions have given the state a free hand to ignore the miseries of the poor during the crisis and in general. Factories have been shut down and there is massive unemployment among the working class. In the absence of livelihood and means of sustenance, workers are forced to leave cities and move towards their villages. Lack of transportation during lockdowns compelled them to cover hundreds of kilometres on foot, and those left behind in cities crave for food. Governments have failed to provide them food and shelter, and many have lost their lives to hunger, poverty, and despair.
Exploitative institutions with a profit-oriented, capitalist mentality have turned this global healthcare crisis into a ‘humanitarian’ one. The ‘champions of welfare’ and ‘ever victorious liberalism’ have no answers. Due to their hostility and negligence towards epidemics faced by the poor and marginalized, capitalist economies never bothered to develop effective infrastructure for healthcare. Since this virus does not discriminate between the rich and the poor, economies are left with no other option than to head towards investing heavily in healthcare and make way for fresh socialist air to enter the dark, exploitative room of capitalism. At the same time, it must be noted that socialist countries, with their regard for the poor, regularly kept learning from the occasional outbreak of various contagions and invested heavily in healthcare, by developing state capacity for dealing with such crises. Socialist states like Cuba, Vietnam and those which shaped their models of welfare along the lines of socialism like Scandinavian countries have had correct answers. The Indian state of Kerala too has passed the test.
As Fidel Castro said, “We do not produce biological weapons or weapons of mass destruction, but we produce doctors to fight the epidemic, to heal the world”. Amidst the pandemic, while the neoliberal order crumbles in front of us, the red flag flies high. The post-corona order would be an order of socialism, marked by love for humanity, equality, human dignity, and true welfare.
Khushbu Sharma is a Masters’ student the Centre for Political Studies (CPS) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
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