We Need a Whole Different World
How the Revolution Would Deal with Epidemics

March 30, 2020 | revcom.us

Right now, horrifying scenes are happening all over.

In New York, sick people stack up in emergency rooms. Many die because

People wait in line to get into Elmhurst Hospital
in Queens, New York, last week. The people who
run this system knew in advance that something
like the coronavirus pandemic could happenany
time. But they did nothing, because of the nature
of their system. (Photo: AP)

there are no ventilators to help them breathe when their lungs can’t function. Doctors, nurses, and hospital workers get sick and even die because they don’t have the basic protective gear that they need. In the slave-ship prisons and immigrant detention centers, where people are packed like sardines, the virus looms like a hurricane. Millions in America have lost their jobs and children go hungry.

Billions more, around the world, face a choice of starvation or repression, with very little protection against the disease or access to health care if they get it.

The rulers of the world, and of America, fight between themselves, with no real answers – while the masses suffer horribly.

But it does not have to be this way! We are organizing now for an actual revolution – an overthrow of this system, not a facelift. We are fighting for a whole new state power – the New Socialist Republic in North America. And here is what THAT socialist society would do:

One. The revolutionary power would prepare for disasters like this, not leave society defenseless.

The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, states the following:

Research and other work will be done to anticipate, as much as possible, and to prevent to the greatest degree possible, outbreaks of disease and epidemics, and to detect and treat such outbreaks and epidemics as quickly and effectively as possible where and when they cannot be prevented.

Just compare that to what the current system did. The government knew for years that a virus like this could easily hit. They even did studies that told them what they would need: extra hospital beds for emergencies. Research to prepare new vaccines. Protective equipment like masks and emergency machines like ventilators. Planning ahead how to tide people over in emergency without millions going hungry or worse. But very little of that was done.

Why? Because the system we live under – capitalism-imperialism – is NOT set up to meet people’s needs. It is a system of cutthroat competition between those who own the means of creating wealth, a system in which nothing happens unless someone can profit off it. Planning for emergencies, stockpiling critical supplies, and producing vaccines that may be needed in the future are just not “profitable” in the short term. And instead of Trump and the Democratic governors competing for resources like we see today, the socialist state would coordinate resources and response nationally—with an economy oriented towards people’s needs, NOT profit.

Two. The new socialist state would draw on the knowledge of scientists and ordinary people all over the world to defeat the epidemic. To again quote the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America:

In keeping with a scientific approach, as well as an internationalist orientation, research and development, and practical developments, in the field of medicine shall be shared, as fully as possible, with people in this (and related) fields in other parts of the world, and cooperation shall be promoted and effected in detecting, combating and preventing outbreaks of diseases and epidemics…

But look at what this system we are under now is doing: companies hoarding knowledge to use for profit, imperialist powers fighting to get a new vaccine first and use it against its rivals… and meanwhile people will die for lack of a vaccine.

Three: The masses of people will not only be truthfully informed of the whole situation, their intelligence, creativity and spirit of self-sacrifice will be brought to bear. Again, from the future Constitution:

In the treatment of disease, and in other aspects of medicine, the sensibilities, as well as the experience and knowledge, of patients, and of the people broadly, shall be taken into account and drawn on fully as a basic requirement and a basic resource in the practice of medicine and the development and application of medical science.

Compare that to the system we live under now, where most people are kept ignorant of science and kept passive during a crisis like now.

Last, but hardly least – because social production would be geared to meet people’s needs, and not for the profit of this or that capitalist, necessities could be stockpiled in advance and shared in an equitable way when a disaster like this DID strike. Compare that to this system, when millions don’t have the money for rent, or even groceries, and will either go homeless or hungry.

The world envisioned in this Constitution is possible. But to bring that world into being we need an actual revolution. There is the leadership for that revolution, in Bob Avakian, BA. And there is a strategy he has developed which, through hard struggle, can get us there.

The fact that we have such a leader and the vision and strategy is a huge plus. What is needed, right now more than ever, is YOU!

Learn about, and be part of, this movement. Get into BA. Go to our website at revcom.us and find out more. Tune into our YouTube program The RNL Show. And follow us on social media.

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