BILL LEE
March 30, 2020
Trump the Free Marketer
Donald J. Trump is, as we know, a true believing, committed-free market zealot. We must also know that this has implications for how the United States has attempted, and will attempt, to manage the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic in the USA. For example, David Leonhardt (2010: 14) reports in the New York Times that, people close to him have indicated that, "He does not want to direct companies to produce medical supplies because doing so would violate the administration's free-market economic Views". The venial stupidity of that kind of response would perhaps be startling if he were a different kind of man. But, we know that he isn't and it appears that Trump and at least some of his GOP minions, like Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, are having a go at softening up the public of the USA for the idea of a little triage of those who might become infected with the virus. The efforts of the various state and federal public health authorities, they believe, have focused too much on the saving of lives and not nearly sufficiently on the saving of the economy. To this end the President has opined that he sees it as logical and necessary, for the sake of the economy, to have the principles and practices of physical distancing and restrictions on places where people will congregate, cut back so that people can get back to work making widgets and serving the public whatever goods they might be looking for. He suggested that Easter Sunday, presumably because he holds his Christian faith so close to his heart, would be a great day to see the churches packed. He claims he is mightily concerned that the economy of the USA must get back to functioning "normally" because it is the most important aspect of the life of his fellow citizens. In this he is, of course, among "friends." Many of those of his class are beating a similar drum. Larry Cudlow, his Director of the United States National Economic Council, has said: "I don’t want to downplay anything. Worry about the effect on human beings, for heaven’s sake. But I’m just saying, let’s not overreact. In many ways, America should stay at work". (Pound: 2020) A writer for Counterfire put it this way: "The false argument coming from parts of that 1% now is that they are protecting human well-being by preserving their system and getting back to profit-making, at the cost of what is thought to be a 1% general mortality rate from the pandemic (though we don't know the figure accurately)." What this means of course is that Trump and his 1% pals are prepared to have, or require that, the most vulnerable of the population in the USA - the elderly, those with "underlying conditions" and the marginalized - pay the price. But that is a price that they will gladly see paid.1
A Sociopath at the Helm
On one level it appears that Trump is simply particularly ill-equipped, morally or psychologically, to understand or care about anything beyond what he perceives to be his own peculiar personal interests. In other words, the Electoral College of the USA chose a dangerous sociopath as the country’s president. His diseased, egomaniacal overweening arrogance and the pitiful, voracious hunger to be fawned over, which he evidences on a daily basis, is beyond
stunning, it is frightening. His perceived interest these days is his determination to get elected for a second term. He connects that goal with the potential for him to take credit for how well the economy, but more particularly the stock market, is doing, and, as we know, it is not doing well at all.2 This is clearly worrying him. Thus, he focuses on two things, the economy and his own economic and electoral self-interest.
Capitalism's Need to Commodifiy
At first glance this latest vile yammering of Trump and his gang is horrific and mad. But to be clear, he and his like-minded supporters are articulating, implicitly, a key aspect of the capitalist system: it’s tendency, really its requirement, that life, environmental and human, become commoditized. We must learn to see everyone and everything as input and output commodities for the purpose of creating profit for the wealthy. A dollar figure can and should be placed on everything. Not all the slavish devotees of the capitalist system have gone quite this far of course. Take Margret Thatcher for example. Lady Thatcher, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, famously intoned, in an interview in Women's Own in 1987, that, "They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.". Note that while she denied the idea of society and social responsibility here, she was also relegating the notion of community to, at best, a second or third level of mutual care and responsibility. It is a very cynical and small-minded notion of humanity. But, next to Trump and his gang, even Thatcher’s mythical stalwart individuals are being dismissed, at least if they are elderly, marginalized, or are ill.
So, I think it is fair to say that Trump and the 1%, who are calling the shots today are not simply following the Iron Lady but are in fact Thatcherites on steroids. Trump's administration's handling (or mishandling) of the crisis is rooted in transactional capitalistic terms: what will work to grow the economy and profit is to be "valued", what does not, or worse, anything causes the economy and profit to shrink, is expendable. Thus, I think it possible, with the advent of Donald J. Trump as the most powerful man in the world, that we are seeing the epitome of dumb, brutal, Capitalist values3 being evidenced in the USA and at a great human cost. In effect, we may be experiencing advanced capitalism being pushed to the extreme end of its terrifyingly inhuman logic. We are witnessing the alienating commodification of literally everything and everyone. Trump, Capitalism and the Covid-19 Pandemic may be the perfect storm. The ominous words of Antonio Gramsci, from his Prison Notebooks, may be terribly apt: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Resources:
Leonhardt, D. (2010). "How Trump Is Worsening a Crisis". New York Times International Weekly. p. 14. March 28-29.
Ovenden, K. (2020). "The sociopathic calculus of capitalism in a crisis." Counterfire. March 25. https://www.counterfire.org/articles/opinion/21016-the-sociopathic-calculus-of-capitalism-in-a-crisis."
Pound, J. (2020). "America should stay at work,’ despite coronavirus, Larry Kudlow says". CNBC.Com., March, 6. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/america-should-stay-at-work-despite-coronavirus-larry-kudlow-says.html.
Williams-Grut. O. (2020). "Stocks fall as US Covid-19 cases overtake China". Yahoo Finance UK. March 27. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-covid-19-stock-market-ftse-100-us-china-082808914.html.
1 Governor General Patrick made the kind of thing they were thinking of clear when, on the dreadful Fox Network recently he said: “No one reached out to me and said as a senior citizen, ‘Are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? ... And if that is the exchange, I’m all in.” He added helpfully that, “there are lots of grandparents” who would make the same choice because “they don’t want the whole country sacrificed,”
2 Yahoo Finfance reported that despite a one day rebound, “Against this sort of backdrop it is still way too early to sound the all clear, and while yesterday’s rebound was welcome it takes no account of the fact that the infection count and death rate is likely to continue to rise sharply in the coming weeks, and that in any subsequent recovery, consumer incomes and confidence will take some time to recover,”
3 I am of course not suggesting that capitalism in the USA was some sort of kind and gentle system, my point here is that perhaps today, we are observing a kind of omega point, where the full furry of the system inhuman demand for commodification is taking control.
Donald J. Trump is, as we know, a true believing, committed-free market zealot. We must also know that this has implications for how the United States has attempted, and will attempt, to manage the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic in the USA. For example, David Leonhardt (2010: 14) reports in the New York Times that, people close to him have indicated that, "He does not want to direct companies to produce medical supplies because doing so would violate the administration's free-market economic Views". The venial stupidity of that kind of response would perhaps be startling if he were a different kind of man. But, we know that he isn't and it appears that Trump and at least some of his GOP minions, like Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, are having a go at softening up the public of the USA for the idea of a little triage of those who might become infected with the virus. The efforts of the various state and federal public health authorities, they believe, have focused too much on the saving of lives and not nearly sufficiently on the saving of the economy. To this end the President has opined that he sees it as logical and necessary, for the sake of the economy, to have the principles and practices of physical distancing and restrictions on places where people will congregate, cut back so that people can get back to work making widgets and serving the public whatever goods they might be looking for. He suggested that Easter Sunday, presumably because he holds his Christian faith so close to his heart, would be a great day to see the churches packed. He claims he is mightily concerned that the economy of the USA must get back to functioning "normally" because it is the most important aspect of the life of his fellow citizens. In this he is, of course, among "friends." Many of those of his class are beating a similar drum. Larry Cudlow, his Director of the United States National Economic Council, has said: "I don’t want to downplay anything. Worry about the effect on human beings, for heaven’s sake. But I’m just saying, let’s not overreact. In many ways, America should stay at work". (Pound: 2020) A writer for Counterfire put it this way: "The false argument coming from parts of that 1% now is that they are protecting human well-being by preserving their system and getting back to profit-making, at the cost of what is thought to be a 1% general mortality rate from the pandemic (though we don't know the figure accurately)." What this means of course is that Trump and his 1% pals are prepared to have, or require that, the most vulnerable of the population in the USA - the elderly, those with "underlying conditions" and the marginalized - pay the price. But that is a price that they will gladly see paid.1
A Sociopath at the Helm
On one level it appears that Trump is simply particularly ill-equipped, morally or psychologically, to understand or care about anything beyond what he perceives to be his own peculiar personal interests. In other words, the Electoral College of the USA chose a dangerous sociopath as the country’s president. His diseased, egomaniacal overweening arrogance and the pitiful, voracious hunger to be fawned over, which he evidences on a daily basis, is beyond
stunning, it is frightening. His perceived interest these days is his determination to get elected for a second term. He connects that goal with the potential for him to take credit for how well the economy, but more particularly the stock market, is doing, and, as we know, it is not doing well at all.2 This is clearly worrying him. Thus, he focuses on two things, the economy and his own economic and electoral self-interest.
Capitalism's Need to Commodifiy
At first glance this latest vile yammering of Trump and his gang is horrific and mad. But to be clear, he and his like-minded supporters are articulating, implicitly, a key aspect of the capitalist system: it’s tendency, really its requirement, that life, environmental and human, become commoditized. We must learn to see everyone and everything as input and output commodities for the purpose of creating profit for the wealthy. A dollar figure can and should be placed on everything. Not all the slavish devotees of the capitalist system have gone quite this far of course. Take Margret Thatcher for example. Lady Thatcher, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, famously intoned, in an interview in Women's Own in 1987, that, "They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.". Note that while she denied the idea of society and social responsibility here, she was also relegating the notion of community to, at best, a second or third level of mutual care and responsibility. It is a very cynical and small-minded notion of humanity. But, next to Trump and his gang, even Thatcher’s mythical stalwart individuals are being dismissed, at least if they are elderly, marginalized, or are ill.
So, I think it is fair to say that Trump and the 1%, who are calling the shots today are not simply following the Iron Lady but are in fact Thatcherites on steroids. Trump's administration's handling (or mishandling) of the crisis is rooted in transactional capitalistic terms: what will work to grow the economy and profit is to be "valued", what does not, or worse, anything causes the economy and profit to shrink, is expendable. Thus, I think it possible, with the advent of Donald J. Trump as the most powerful man in the world, that we are seeing the epitome of dumb, brutal, Capitalist values3 being evidenced in the USA and at a great human cost. In effect, we may be experiencing advanced capitalism being pushed to the extreme end of its terrifyingly inhuman logic. We are witnessing the alienating commodification of literally everything and everyone. Trump, Capitalism and the Covid-19 Pandemic may be the perfect storm. The ominous words of Antonio Gramsci, from his Prison Notebooks, may be terribly apt: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Resources:
Leonhardt, D. (2010). "How Trump Is Worsening a Crisis". New York Times International Weekly. p. 14. March 28-29.
Ovenden, K. (2020). "The sociopathic calculus of capitalism in a crisis." Counterfire. March 25. https://www.counterfire.org/articles/opinion/21016-the-sociopathic-calculus-of-capitalism-in-a-crisis."
Pound, J. (2020). "America should stay at work,’ despite coronavirus, Larry Kudlow says". CNBC.Com., March, 6. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/america-should-stay-at-work-despite-coronavirus-larry-kudlow-says.html.
Williams-Grut. O. (2020). "Stocks fall as US Covid-19 cases overtake China". Yahoo Finance UK. March 27. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-covid-19-stock-market-ftse-100-us-china-082808914.html.
1 Governor General Patrick made the kind of thing they were thinking of clear when, on the dreadful Fox Network recently he said: “No one reached out to me and said as a senior citizen, ‘Are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? ... And if that is the exchange, I’m all in.” He added helpfully that, “there are lots of grandparents” who would make the same choice because “they don’t want the whole country sacrificed,”
2 Yahoo Finfance reported that despite a one day rebound, “Against this sort of backdrop it is still way too early to sound the all clear, and while yesterday’s rebound was welcome it takes no account of the fact that the infection count and death rate is likely to continue to rise sharply in the coming weeks, and that in any subsequent recovery, consumer incomes and confidence will take some time to recover,”
3 I am of course not suggesting that capitalism in the USA was some sort of kind and gentle system, my point here is that perhaps today, we are observing a kind of omega point, where the full furry of the system inhuman demand for commodification is taking control.
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