As coronavirus spreads, the rich are buying lavish bunkers to escape the virus. This one in Germany is spread over 76 acres.
Pic reproduced from -- Los Angeles Times
Let’s be very clear. As Robert Reich, a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley and the ex-Secretary of Labour in former US President Bill Clinton’s first term put it: “The problem is the virus, not the economy.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi too echoed this when he told G-20 leaders to put human beings first, and then look at economic targets.
But as the world grapples to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the voice to sacrifice people – especially grand-parents – for the sake of the economy, is growing. In an interview with Fox News, Texas Lt Governor Dan Patrick, said that grandparents should be willing to die for the sake of America’s economy, and for the sake of younger generation. He said people should be smart to survive, but wanted people to return to work. However, at no stage in the course of his interview did he say that he being a grandfather himself, with six grand children, is willing to sacrifice his life. Obviously he thinks he is smart enough. And of course we know the ultra-rich as a class are smart to always maintain a physical distance from the rest of the society. Sales of bunkers with special air-filtration systems, escape tunnels and assured food supplies for one year are going up.
And if you think Dan Patrick is alone in carrying such repugnant views, just hold on. US billionaire Tom Golisano told the news agency Bloomberg: “The damages of keeping the economy closed as it is could be worse than losing a few more people.” At a time when number of people testing positive is increasing in a geometric proportion, crossing 82,000 in the US (as on Mar 27 morning), and the number of those succumbing to the virus are steadily growing, billionaires are instead busy raising concern over dwindling profits and therefore the urgent need to restart the businesses. With nearly half the global population under a virtual house arrest, with industries having pulled down shutters, and with international and domestic travel at a standstill, the Wall Street Journal in an editorial Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown wrote: “no society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health.”
If you’re still not shocked, take a look at what columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in New York Times: “Let many of us get the coronavirus, recover and get back to work – while doing our utmost to protect those most vulnerable to being killed by it.” As if human lives don’t matter, and the death rate from Coronavirus infection is nothing more than a set of statistics, like the way policy makers view farmer suicides in India, another advocate of ‘choose the economy’ refrain, another US billionaire, Dick Kovacevich, was quoted as saying: “We’ll gradually bring those people back and see what happens. Some of them will get sick, some may even die, I don’t know.”
The US President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday: “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. At the end of the 15 day period, we will make a decision as to which way we want to go.” This was before the infection rate zoomed in America. Far away in Brazil, the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro calls the coronavirus outbreak as a ‘little flu” and thinks the media is ‘tricking’ people of the severity of the crisis primarily to topple his government. He is not in favour of a lockdown in his country.
With such insensitive responses pouring in from the rich and mighty if you are wondering what kind of a
society we are living in, where economics takes precedence over what might turn out to be gravest of human tragedies, let me tell you it has historically been more or less like this. When the British government asked the then Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell, to explain the reasons behind millions of people (3 to 4 million) who perished in the Bengal Famine in 1943, the Viceroy wrote back saying that these poverty-stricken people in any case would have died. As we all know, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s seminal work later had shown that there was no shortfall in food production in 1943 and the resulting famine was the outcome of British government’s deliberate policy of diverting food elsewhere. But instead of accepting the blame for depriving the poor of food, Winston Churchill is reported to have shifted the blame for the famine to poor Indians, saying they were "breeding like rabbits." Much earlier, at the time of the Irish Famine between 1845 and 1849, during which time an estimated one million people died of starvation and another one million migrated, the deaths from starvation were perhaps nothing more than a collateral damage.
At the 150thcommemoration of the Irish Famine at Cork in Ireland, I vividly recall the mayor of the city in his opening remarks saying what kind of society existed in Ireland at that time when people were dying of hunger from the failure of the staple potato crop, devastated by potato blight disease, the Colonial masters were busy loading ships with corn to be carried to Britain. From the starvation deaths to the pandemics – including the Spanish Flu in 1918 which killed roughly 20 to 25 million people – many political economists view it as a subjugation of the ordinary people by a small section of the elite.
At these pressing times, Robert Reich finds it ‘morally reprehensible’ on how corporations are exploiting the crisis. The US Senator Bernie Sanders said “When we say it’s time to provide health care to our people, we’re told we can’t afford it.” But when the stock markets feel jittery, there is no shortage of money. Out from the hat the US government pulls out $1.5 trillion to calm investor’s worries. This is true globally. Hopefully, when everything calms down, the world may see a behavioural change as well as encounter a dramatic change in economic thinking.
Nevertheless, saner voices dominate. The global response to combating the pandemic is on right track -- limiting the spread. India’s response with a nationwide three-week lockdown is a step ahead of the international curve, and rightly so. After all, if you survive the crisis you can always rebuild the economy. #
In America, economy first. The Tribune. April 1, 2020
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