Sonali Kolhatkar
The pandemic is a time to profit Even in the midst of the pandemic, the rich are getting richer and bolder in their fight against working Americans.
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he American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Michael Strain wrote an op-ed in the New York Times recently explaining how “The American Dream Is Alive and Well”, and that in his opinion this nation has, “bigger issues than inequality”. Strain’s piece is part of the paper’s new pandemic-era series called “The America We Need”, and engages in a set of impressive mental gymnastics to conclude that it ought to be of no concern that the rich are getting richer and that it would be better to focus instead on, “the relatively slow rate of productivity growth”, or “the long-term decline in male employment”. Michael Strain is incredulous over our fixation on the concentration of wealth at the top, asking, “Do Americans really care as much about inequality as the attention by media and liberal politicians suggest?” He adds, “Given that income inequality has been stagnant or declining over the most recent decade, the timing… is odd” for a conversation “about whether
inequality suggests that capitalism itself is broken”. However, inequality continues to steadily rise – a fact it seems the pro-freemarket American Enterprise Institute is hoping we ignore. In his op-ed, Strain chants a mantra that he and other proponents of capitalism want to realise through sheer repetition: “Capitalism isn’t broken. The game isn’t rigged. Hard work does pay off”. Most insultingly, he maintains that, “American workers are resilient and are accustomed to facing – and overcoming – economic challenges”. In other words, because American workers are used to being screwed over by the economy and most have seemingly managed to survive it, they will continue to do so in the face of ever-increasing hardship.
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emocratic Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) questioned Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during a Senate hearing on May 19, “How many workers will die if we send people back to work without the protections they
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need, Mr. Secretary? How many workers should give their lives to increase our [gross domestic product] by half a percent?” Mnuchin responded, “I think your characterisation is unfair”, but the Trump administration he attempted to defend has in fact forced people back to work, namely in the meatpacking industry. President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act – not to direct the commercial production of much-needed medical and protective equipment, but rather to provide cover to the meat industry as it seeks to force workers back into a dangerous environment. Thousands of workers have become infected in recent months. But if meatpacking workers contract the disease and die, it is their fault, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who recently claimed that it was the “home and social” conditions in the lives of meatpacking plant workers that were responsible for their Covid-19 diagnoses. He even went as far as suggesting more law enforcement surveillance of those communities where
