Unsanitized: A Crisis to End All Crises

How our response to the coronavirus can inform our ongoing challenges. This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for March 29, 2020.

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The following is a guest version of Unsanitized from Mehrsa Baradaran, a professor of law at UC Irvine School of Law, and author of How the Other Half Banks and The Color of Money. She is also a Prospect board member.

Experts studying climate change, growing inequality, wage stagnation, and unsustainable debt have for years been trying to warn the public that, even though life seems normal for many people, these issues signal a critical crisis and ongoing epidemics. Communities across the US are suffering an epidemic of drug addiction, an epidemic of deaths of despair arising from poverty, an epidemic of anxiety because of the student loan crisis. Wave after wave of famines, crop failures, and wildfire crises (and now, an ominous swarm of locusts) have their origins in climate change. Yet business went on as usual, as the crises and epidemics raged slowly in the background.

Now, a global pandemic threatens all of us at once. The coronavirus has generated a tragedy of epic proportions; many lives will be lost in a short amount of time. Yet still, the other less acute epidemics will continue to rage on, unless we take this long pause as an opportunity to consider whether we want to reemerge from this crisis back to the way we were, or whether we want to shape a new way forward.

There are a few connected realities that have emerged from this crisis, which can guide us as we try to deal with our previous, ongoing crises:

First, our actions affect other people even when we aren’t aware. What we’re all learning during this pandemic is that, as we go about our normal lives, we put other people in grave danger. So it has always been with climate change—each time we overconsume, buy gas, and basically maintain our current state of economic growth, we contribute to a warming planet that is causing climate disasters all over the world. All of our individual and collective actions can cause dislocation, death, famine, and scarcity. Our lives and fates have always been linked, because the earth’s resources are not unlimited. Each one of us who takes more than our share of resources causes harm somewhere else.

Second, the imperatives of economic growth conflict with lives lost. Our president has signaled that he would not let the coronavirus cure be worse than the disease. Other commenters, many of whom are not fans of the president, have been echoing this line of thinking. They characterize it as a trade-off; social isolation is going to hammer the economy as it slows the spread of the virus. Others have put it more crudely: sacrificing a portion of the population to death might be better than watching the stock market tank.

But the tension between human well-being and market well-being has always existed. The current structure of our economy relies on perpetual GDP growth, which requires that we favor a return on capital rather than human flourishing or ecological health. Usually, some group of humans has to “sacrifice” their labor, their land, or their health for the sake of economic growth. The drive toward profits has led to slavery, labor exploitation, sweatshops, and our current winner-takes-all economy. Economic growth has always come at a cost, whether manifested in the famines and starvations of the colonized world or today’s corporate exploitation of labor and resources. People continue to die prematurely and live brutal lives of poverty and endless work.

Third, we can stop the status quo if we need to. To watch the entire world grind to a halt has been jarring and scary and disorienting. To see rigid rules and institutions adapt has also been stunning. Schools have quickly gone online, in-person meetings have become webinars and conference calls, and travel has been cancelled. We adapted quickly. We can live another way. We can consume less, take fewer carbon-emitting trips, and relax our work lives. This sudden and dramatic adaptability will be necessary as we consider our carbon future and attempt to halt a growth-based economy.

Fourth, downturns hit the economically vulnerable the hardest, and those at “the bottom” of the economy happen to be its most essential parts. About 40% of Americans could not access $500 if they faced an unexpected expense. Many Americans who work full-time cannot afford food and shelter if they go without wages for a month or two. Many of these workers also happen to be the grocery store clerks, nurses, sanitation workers, and delivery men and women we are all relying on right now. A deep irony of our economy has been that the workers who work the most in the hardest jobs earn the lowest salaries. In our current market system, firms are by law and design focused exclusively on earning profits for their shareholders. By squeezing their companies for maximum profits, investors and managers have replaced well-paid employees with benefits with low-wage or temporary workers to lower their costs of production. Meanwhile, shareholders have engaged in stock buybacks, evaded taxes through offshore loopholes, and lobbied for more tax cuts and subsidies, increasing the holdings of their billionaire owners. As increased wealth has accumulated at the top, the financial lives of the majority of Americans have become more precarious. The growing wealth of the 1 percent has come at the expense of the involuntary sacrifice of their workers. These so-called “low skilled” employees are now the main essential workers in the economy.

We were always on an unsustainable path. We have always been inflicted by ongoing pandemics. Perhaps we can use this time to consider what kind of world we want to emerge into. This crisis is already a tragedy of unprecedented proportions, but it would be an even greater tragedy if we did not use it as a wake-up call to address our nation’s ongoing epidemics.

Vital Stats

The numbers are getting grim. As of this morning, the New York Times shows 123,617 U.S. cases (102,636 yesterday) and 2,133 deaths (1,646). Johns Hopkins University shows 124,686 cases (104,860) and 2,191 deaths (1,711). The death toll has doubled in just two days, a terrible sign if it continues. The COVID-19 Tracker shows 121,468 cases (101,369) and 2.045 deaths (1,593), with better news on testing: 762,015 tests completed (645,669 yesterday). Over 220,000 tests have been completed in the past two days, which is great. But Bill McBride asks some good questions about putting the increased testing capacity to use: who will handle tracking, follow-ups, database management, etc., so we can actually implement a test-and-trace system that will allow most people to return to their lives?

Today I Learned

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