Lessons We Must Learn From COVID-19 to Build a Better Society
Community is the key to the future. Those societies that are fairing
best in responding to COVID 19 are those with a strong sense of
community. America's dismal response is not just because of Trump,
but also due to the country's overemphasis on individualism over
community.
Our public health care system, part of our collective sense of
community, was key to our response. It made our ability to control
the outbreak possible. But it is still flawed and could not respond
was well as it should have because it is underfunded and incomplete.
We saw that particularly in the for profit long term care sector,
measured in body counts. We must complete the system by extending it
to prescription drugs, vision and dental care and most importantly
long term care of the elderly and home care. We must eliminate profit
from the provision of health care so that patient care and profits
are never competing for funds. Most importantly we must realize that
health is the most important priority for everyone and under-funding
health care in order to promise lower taxes is in nobody's best
interest.
Our economic safety net was the next most important factor in our
successful response. Unfortunately we did not have a proper system in
place to respond and the government had to respond with a series of
patchwork measures put together quickly which, while it managed to
avoid the worst of our southern neighbours problems, it still left
the most disadvantaged, well still disadvantaged. That series of
measures, as necessary as they were, increased both the deficit and
national debt because the government, that has been under-taxing the
wealthy for decades, did not have the financial capability it should
have.
What we needed and what we need is a basic guaranteed annual income,
and not just one to keep people barely above the poverty line but one
designed to provide a decent quality of life for everyone.
We say 'we are all in this together" but we clearly are not
equally in this together and never will be as long as we live in a
society of massive economic inequality.
We talk about groups such as seniors being more at risk but in
reality the biggest risk factor with COVID 19 is economic status.
Those placed at highest risk, our so-called front-line heroes, those
responsible for producing and providing our food and goods, are
working in cramped and unsafe conditions, along with those working in
high risk long term care facilities, are the biggest group of COVID
19 victims. And these are the people most susceptible to the economic
consequence of COVID 19, often living from paycheck to paycheck. A
few extra dollars per hour for a few weeks is not the solution.
We must deal with the economic inequality in our society by raising
incomes at the bottom and reducing them at the extreme top end. CEOs
of corporations who make their profits and fortunes from minimum wage
earners simply do not earn the millions of dollars per year they are
paid. They are paid that because of an unequal economic and political
system. We must reform our tax system so that those that can afford
to pay more do and those at the bottom pay less at the same time as
we reduce the gap between the bottom and the top.
We need to raise minimum wages to a level that provides a decent
quality of live and use the tax system to redistribute the wealth of
the excessively overpaid. We cannot build the type of community and
society we need on a basis of extreme inequality.
We
also cannot build the society we need without concern for the
environment it lives within and without addressing the challenge of
climate change.
We
need to build a new society, based on community rather than
individualism, if we want to meet the challenges of the future and
this includes a move from more individual spending to more collective
spending. Fundamental change is required if we are to survive the
challenges of the future and thrive within it.
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