How Capitalism Kills During a Pandemic
From failing to develop a vaccine, to evicting the jobless and cutting off their health care, to needlessly subjecting workers and the public to infection: capitalism will be responsible for millions of coronavirus-related deaths.
People speak near a makeshift morgue outside of Bellevue Hospital on March 25, 2020 in New York City, New York. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty
Critics of socialism often point to the mass deaths that occurred under dictators like Stalin and Mao. Such deaths were abhorrent, of course. But one problem with this line of attack is that it selectively ignores the numerous examples of mass deaths that occurred under brutal capitalist regimes, while also overlooking the everyday deaths that are a matter of course under capitalism, caused by grinding and utterly unnecessary poverty.
Both of these realities are or soon will be confronting us under the unfolding coronavirus pandemic. The virus will likely kill millions of people in the United States alone. Many of these fatalities could have been avoided if we had a social order that placed the needs of people over profit. Make no mistake: we’re facing a pandemic that could produce one of the worst mass deaths in human history, and capitalism will be responsible for many of them.
Profit Over People
To explain why, we should first go over some basics about capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system in which a small number of people (capitalists) own the vast majority of material resources (land, buildings, factories) necessary to produce useful things. Other people, the working class — the vast majority of us — own very little or no such resources.
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