The Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International is an international association of Trotskyist political organizations that follow the political legacy of the Fourth International.

Quotes

Coronavirus and the Healthcare Crisis: Our Lives Are Worth More than Their Profits! (March 14, 2020)

Coronavirus and the Healthcare Crisis: Our Lives Are Worth More than Their Profits! (March 14, 2020), Left Voice.
  • The crisis of public healthcare systems has long been a widespread demand in several countries, particularly in the U.S. Surveys showed that even before this crisis, healthcare was among the main concerns of the U.S. population because of the debt it generates for families and because 27.5 million people do not have any kind of coverage. Bernie Sanders has been attacked, not only by Trump but also by the Democrats and Biden, because he calls for Medicare for All. All healthcare systems are organized around the profits of big corporations. The decline in public healthcare is not just caused by right-wing forces, but also by forces claiming to be “progressive” or center-left, as can be seen in Latin America where “progressive” governments have failed to change the structure of “first-rate” and private healthcare for the rich while public healthcare for the poor is absolutely backward. State-sponsored scientific research is significantly degraded. Since the elderly suffer the most from the lack of medical and health care, the attacks on pensions that are sweeping across all continents and governments are especially outrageous. They transform the increase in people’s life expectancy into a “problem” for the budgets of capitalist states. These states make jobs more precarious while reducing taxes for the rich.
  • In different countries, especially where there is more class struggle, governments will seek to make political use of the COVID-19 health crisis, with the aim of restricting democratic freedoms and preventing demonstrations of discontent and struggle. The case of Chile is illustrative: the government of Sebastián Piñera went from complete idleness to a discourse about the enormous consequences of the virus, demanding measures like the cancellation of massive events while refusing to discuss the fact that working people still will not have access to free testing and the Chilean public health system remains enormously unfunded and in crisis. Thus, the government is creating a climate that discourages the mobilizations that take place every week in the country’s main cities. Piñera will attempt to use the health argument to pass repressive laws such as one that would authorize the president to decree the militarization of “critical infrastructure” (hospitals, ports, etc.). We reject any repressive measure that is disguised as health policy and is directed against the masses and their mobilizations (whether organized or spontaneous). It should not be the government that decides whether or not to hold a demonstration, but the organizations in struggle with the advice of healthcare professionals and researchers.
  • For all these reasons, we call on working people and youth to take the struggle for measures against the crisis into our own hands. In Italy we have already seen workers rebelling against the lack of protection measures and for paid leave in factories and companies.
  • We encourage the organizations of the working class to intervene in the crisis with a program independent of the different capitalist factions, and at the same time we point out the need to confront the power of the capitalists and put an end to their exploitation of the workers of the whole world and of the planet itself. We are fighting for workers’ governments and socialist revolution to transform society root and branch, because capitalist society protects profits, not the lives of the working classes.
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