Capitalism: a final warning

If there’s any more evidence that capitalism has reached its lowest point it is this:

Two of the largest long-term care providers in the Toronto area (Extendicare Inc. and Sienna Senior Living Inc) have received more than $157 million in federal and provincial COVID-19 relief while also paying out a combined total of $74 million in dividends this year. Meanwhile, more than 480 residents and staff have died of COVID-19 at the companies' care homes in Ontario.

People are profiting off of our seniors being herded together like cattle on their way to slaughter and taxpayers are footing the bill. Extendicare is also the same company that runs Parkside in Regina, where at least eight seniors have already passed away from COVID-19 and now firefighters are being asked to help out. At a private facility. Owned by a corporation that is still paying out dividends to shareholders.

If this doesn’t give you pause, then I would suggest you are part of the problem. If you simply think that more regulations are needed, then you too are the problem. How much more evidence do we need to show that corporations will always find a way to keep the profits flowing? If you give capital an inch, it will take a mile.

It is clear that we are not going to fix all the problems of capitalism that are being exposed by this pandemic with more capitalism. It is absolutely insane to keep thinking that less government and more private money is going to some how result in a utopia of freedom and happiness as we have all been promised for the past four decades living under neoliberal capitalism. Especially with the prospects of climate change, civil unrest, and further pandemics in our near future.

What the privatization and commodification of our most basic human needs is doing is ceding control to the needs of profit, which itself feeds off of human misery, creating a cycle of dependency. We need a different way. A more democratic way. A more humane and empathetic way. A way that puts the needs of people and of communities first. If we do not, everything we have been working towards can and will be lost.

This isn’t hyperbole. This is the reality we are all facing right now and it seems all too similar to what the world was facing in the first half of the 1900s. So, if you think you are immune to the social and economic unrest that will come in the absence of radical, positive change, you may want to read about how things turned out for the bourgeoise in past revolutions, or to the working class (anyone who uses their labour to earn an income, even at a desk) in the 1920s. Except this time, with far more humans, far more to lose, and far more powerful weapons, the consequences will be much more significant and longer lasting, if not permanent.

So, what will come first? Radical, positive change, or the nuclear guillotine? Will we choose to ignore history and to protect our short term economic interests, only to likely lose it all later, or will we gather the courage to protect the future of our species and fight for those who need the help from those of us who are able? We are all in this together, whether we like it or not, and we need each other if we want to keep moving this experiment forward. If we all don’t consider this in every moment of every day, then we indeed are doomed.