3 private links
We are facing two crises at once, health and economic, that are related in very important ways. The covid-19 epidemic has done major damage around the world, but it’s highlighting some serious structural problems with the US social model that better-run countries are not so afflicted by. We are plagued by a deep economic polarization complicated by minimal social protections; severely diminished state capacity, with eroded institutional structures and extremely debased quality of personnel at the highest levels; years of underinvestment in basic infrastructure, both broadly and in health care particularly; and decades of neoliberal policies that have shaped a common sense based on competitive individualism, with little sense of social solidarity. That’s the longer-term context in which we face the acute crisis of this disease—which is almost certainly a portent of what we’ll face as the climate crisis worsens.