The COVID-19 crisis is not the result of a single virus. No single virus could create such deep uncertainty and fear in our country; no disease could unleash such horrific ambivalence and unspeakable loathing.
No, we face the collapse of an economic system that has been so puffed up with air, so corrupted by derivatives and quantitative easing, so diluted by stock buybacks and other financial products cooked up by experts who know, better than you do, what is in your interest. In a word, the economy no longer has anything to do with our lives. It had become an ethereal realm, a kingdom of deception where the powerful live in cloud castles.
This “economy” if that is the right word for it, had nothing to do with us, with working people who try to feed our children. We watch hopelessly as our country is being torn apart, all beyond our control, beyond our knowledge, and beyond our paygrade.
The economy has collapsed, and we must rebuild it.
But if we try to restore the rotted house that stood there before, our future will be grim.
The Federal Reserve cannot print up jobs, or print up clean air or pristine water. In fact, as long as the government remains the prisoner of the rich and powerful, it cannot do anything at all. We must cut the strings of this devious puppet master; we must create a government, and an economy, of the people, for the people and by the people.
The currency that is driving the rapid transformation of our economy is the currency of fear; it spreads like horrific virus, mutating everything that it touches into despair and uncertainty. It is a monstrous Midas that destroys all value and all goodness.
And what about that check for a thousand dollars they said they will mail you? Will the post office still be delivering mail? Will one thousand dollars still buy the same amount of food, or of toilet paper, in six months? Certainly, the investment banks that speculate in derivatives do not have to wait so long for payment, nor the fossil fuel companies destroying our climate.
But we do not have to have the rules dictated to us by Mammon. We, as citizens, can take control of our nation’s economy and we can transform it. That transformation will not start in the cushy offices of a Senate committee, nor in the hip cafes frequented by the bankers at Blackstone or Morgan Stanley.
No, the recovery from this catastrophe will not be provided by those who intentionally created this crisis. Salvation this time will not be found by following the same bloated swine who led us to slaughter back in 2008.
By Emanuel Pastreich
Featured image is from news.harvard.edu
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