healthcare

The notorious flu epidemic of 1918 – known as the ‘Spanish’ flu epidemic – was first reported among US troops bound for the First World War trenches. Given the enormous mobility of troops at the time, the disease was largely free to spread to fresh population centres and so it claimed the lives of 50 million people worldwide. Spreading like wildfire. A powerful example of the destructive power of a pandemic.

This short reflection is a synthesis of ideas common to various comrades, from different areas, with whom we frequently discuss. In fact, some of the considerations here are now becoming an integral and shared perspective beyond that of any one organisation. This gives us hope that in the near future the most politically aware elements will recognise that we are all travelling in the same direction.

Leaving aside for a moment the issue of “fake news” conspiracy theories circulating in the ether about the origins of the virus, that whether by accident or deliberately American laboratories engineered it themselves (with all the implications this would have on international imperialist scenarios), let us confront the problem in simple terms, based on what the theorists are saying about the possibility of coming out of this latest financial-economic crisis.

Coronavirus has now become a pandemic that none of us wished for. And the response of the society in which we live only demonstrates the absurdity of its economic laws which cannot cope with sudden calamities and natural upheavals, including the climate and environmental disasters also looming on the horizon.