The strength of a planned economy displayed!
R. Beiterin, May 2020
From the failures of the capitalist world, emerges the bourgeoisie’s finger pointing towards China. With Scott Morison’s Liberal party leading the way, capitalist governments throughout the world has begun to support this “inquiry” into China’s responsibility of spreading this virus. While it is true the bureaucrats of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at first attempted to cover up the existence of Coronavirus, going so far as to detaining doctors for reporting on the case, once it became clear it was not going away they mobilised with the strength of a planned economy already in January 2020, as well as alerting the rest of the world around the same time. As China slowly opens up victorious, America clamours to do the same – at the cost of potentially millions of workers lives. It is clear that the Chinese planned economy has shown its superiority over capitalist anarchy despite the massive inroads of capitalist private property allowed by the ruling bureaucracy – a betrayal of the revolution that smashed capitalist rule in the country. This is similarly seen with Cuba and Vietnam who have also mobilised successfully against the coronavirus.
Bruce Aylward, a delegate for the World Health Organisation (WHO) – itself an organisation primarily funded by imperialists – was forced to admit that “the world is in your debt” for the way the virus was dealt with. China’s “people’s war” against the coronavirus includes building two hospitals in 10 days, providing 2,600 beds. Unlike places like Italy, where the elderly have been left to die, the CCP mobilised so that there was capacity for not only the infected but people with unrelated medical needs could get their required care. The CCP was also quick to shut down key public areas despite it being Lunar New Year, even at the cost of massive amounts of revenue. When the reported deaths had just passed 100, at an estimated cost of 2 billion USD, China had shut down over 70,000 screens during peak season. This was accompanied with an extension on the Spring Festival so that there was an increased time to manage and control the outbreak before many workers left their families to travel back to their workplaces. 2,500 factories were converted to produce 116 million masks daily – over 10 times more than the usual 10 million face masks usually produced. Today, as most of the world is still dealing with the pandemic, China has under 100 active cases, a true testament to the mobilisations that were able to be done due to a planned economy instead of capitalist anarchy.
This is of course to the dismay of capitalists. The American capitalist mouthpiece the New York Times, reports that “Some say it [i.e. the defence of human lives at the cost of profits] has gone too far”.1 Who are this “some”? Well Chinese “business leaders” of course! Quoting James Liang, executive chairman of Trip.com, they cry out how “If the country becomes poorer because of emergency health measures […] that might hurt public health more than the virus itself”. Oh the travesty! Has nobody thought about the profits? I am sure that Chinese workers envy the wellbeing of the workers of America who are returning to work with well over a million active cases reported in the country. This cry is matched with their international class brothers. Jörg Wuttke, the president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China – a soapbox for European capitalists, went so far to say that “it’s like Europe in Medieval times where each city has its checks and crosschecks”. This was said of course before European countries had the virus spreading en masse, where now most of Europe looks much more like a diseased wracked medieval Europe than China ever did.2 Ker Gibbs, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai – a voice for American capitalists clamouring for an “open market” (i.e. capitalist restored) China, makes the claim that capitalists “want to protect staff, but also nobody wants to get caught offsides when it comes to the labor law or the daily announcements from the government”. One must truly feel for these poor capitalists, having to deal with unfair labour laws which force them to put proper safety regulations in their workplaces. When reading the words of these capitalists, it is quite obvious that the “freedom” they want in China is the freedom of capital to crush the worker.
Unlike China, most countries had a huge head start in dealing with the virus before it reached a stage of mass infections. Australia definitely has not felt near the brunt of this crisis thanks to this. But even in this case it is at the cost of a huge loss of livelihood for many workers with rarely any worthwhile compensation. Although not all capitalist nations dealt with the coronavirus as poorly as the US, Italy and Brazil (et al), it is a clear tendency derived from capitalists’ thirst for profits at the wellbeing of workers.
It is imperative that the slander against China must be dispelled. Capitalists clamour through their press to point a finger elsewhere, but the cause of the horrors of this pandemic is obvious – it is a crisis of capitalism! The ruling bureaucratic caste of the CCP, as already shown by their conduct in several cases, cannot guarantee the proper defence of the elements of economic planning, workers achievements and well being, nor the advance towards socialism on an international scale. A complementary workers’ political revolution to reorganise the workers’ state and review the economy is urgently necessary. But even with the bureaucratic caste of the CCP, China has shown again the need and superiority of the planned economy.