Defend Truth

Opinionista

Covid-19 is busy crashing the capitalist system – time for a rethink and a reboot

mm

Dakota Legoete is an ANC NEC member.

The system that we have supported for so long will have to be reimagined and can only be deemed a success if we are to come out of this on the other side, having taken everyone into consideration – not just how much any one individual is worth as a measure of how they are treated.

The popular protest slogan “People Before Profit” is being heard louder than ever, given the impact of Covid-19 on economies across the world.

The pandemic has triggered a global financial apocalypse not seen in 150 years, says the World Bank – the body further points out that 90% of the world’s 183 formalised economies would go into recession this year.

At a government level, the impact has already meant compromises.

Our South African government, which has so far succeeded in not asking the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan, is in the throes of considering inking a deal worth more than R70-billion as the pandemic and its repercussions have placed constraints on our economy, coupled with structural reforms over the past 25 years, not forgetting the legacies of inequality which still more than linger.

Let us hope the IMF caveats do not impugn on South Africa’s sovereignty.

Meanwhile, the voices shouting these slogans on streets across the world are being heard more consistently in homes and in the boardrooms of business as well as the halls of political power.

Some pundits have called Covid-19 and poverty the twin threats to humankind at this point in history. 

Some would argue that poverty has been one of the single greatest threats to human civilisation and has been with us for a while.

Covid-19 has merely amplified what we have chosen to ignore for a very long time. 

But who is to blame?

While we decry the fact that the majority of wealth is in the hands of a few very powerful individuals; that supply and manufacturing chains are still not diversified enough in terms of ownership; and that way too many people earn way too little making those few mentioned earlier even wealthier, what has in fact been done systemically to address the situation?

Very little, one has to argue. The evidence is here today. 

Take away the philosophising and intellectualising of wealth and poverty, and go to a local soup kitchen or place of worship where more and more people have started to try to help those less fortunate.

The queues are not just comprised of homeless individuals, but there’s an increase in so-called middle-class people who have lost their jobs and pretty much everything the bank owned.

It is a precarious scenario: The bottom is busy falling out from under the middle class as many of their lives have been funded by debt. The collateral that was their salary no longer exists and banks, financial institutions and retailers are not places of charity, and their goodwill extends only as far as you servicing your debt owed to them on time (or later by agreement). 

Young people across the world are using their voices to roar once again. Protesters – from Minneapolis to London – are telling authorities that they are not their ancestors and that they will take down the establishment.

This argument is not about good debt or bad debt, but about a reality that will become more widespread and pervasive in the days, weeks and months this virus, this invisible enemy continues its rampage on most aspects of all of our lives.

The system that we have supported for so long will have to be reimagined and can only be deemed a success if we are to come out of this on the other side, having taken everyone into consideration, not just how much any one individual is worth as a measure of how they are treated.

The vestiges and ravages of poverty have been around for a very long time and will continue to be. Our social net via government social grants can only do so much to combat poverty, unemployment and inequality. 

On a human level, many of us have forgotten about our neighbours, whether they have food on the table. We live in a world which encourages a winner-takes-all mentality at the expense of the many. It cannot continue this way nor should it be allowed to.

Young people across the world are using their voices to roar once again. Protesters – from Minneapolis to London – are telling authorities that they are not their ancestors and that they will take down the establishment.

Writing in the Monthly Review in 2019, American professor John Bellamy Foster writes: “Less than two decades into the twenty-first century, it is evident that capitalism has failed as a social system. The world is mired in economic stagnation, financialisation, and the most extreme inequality in human history, accompanied by mass unemployment and underemployment, precariousness, poverty, hunger, wasted output and lives, and what at this point can only be called a planetary ecological ‘death spiral’.

“The digital revolution, the greatest technological advance of our time, has rapidly mutated from a promise of free communication and liberated production into new means of surveillance, control and displacement of the working population. 

“The institutions of liberal democracy are at the point of collapse, while fascism, the rear guard of the capitalist system, is again on the march, along with patriarchy, racism, imperialism and war.”

South Africa and the world needs a rethink and reset in terms of its economies. 

Sovereignities are at risk and difficult decisions lie ahead. But perhaps the system we are all in some way forced to subscribe to, needs a rethink. DM

Dakota Legoete is an ANC NEC member.

Gallery

"Information pertaining to Covid-19, vaccines, how to control the spread of the virus and potential treatments is ever-changing. Under the South African Disaster Management Act Regulation 11(5)(c) it is prohibited to publish information through any medium with the intention to deceive people on government measures to address COVID-19. We are therefore disabling the comment section on this article in order to protect both the commenting member and ourselves from potential liability. Should you have additional information that you think we should know, please email [email protected]"

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.