The Militant & Louis Proyect Argue About the Virus

Louis Proyect (h/t commenter John B) suggests a (perhaps literally) fatal flaw in Socialist Workers Party (SWP) strategy and tactics. Consider the picture below, published in an article by Maggie Trowe in the April 6th edition of The Militant.

Audience at March 15th memorial meeting celebrating the life of Larry Quinn (Source: The Militant/Roy Landerson)

Mr. Proyect notes in his lede:

In this photograph, dated March 15, 2020, you will see a group of mostly senior citizens defying the call for social distancing. Who could they be? Rightwing Christian evangelists? Libertarians standing up for liberty? 

Nope. Instead, you are looking at members of the Socialist Workers Party at a memorial meeting for one of their members who died last month. The Militant newspaper reported that more than sixty people were in attendance. That’s probably about half the membership, ...

The meeting was held in Albany, NY on March 15th. In our comrades' defense, New York's Stay-At-Home order was not issued until March 22nd--a week later. Broadway theaters were closed on March 12th. It's hard for me to go back in time and recover how transgressive such a gathering was perceived back then, but Mr. Proyect obviously conflates attitudes on April 10th (when his article was published) with those on March 15th (when the meeting took place). Likewise, the door-to-door canvassing depicted in this article probably did not violate Indiana's stay-at-home order (not sure).

Mr. Proyect exaggerates the kookiness of the SWP--there is no way this meeting can be interpreted as libertarian civil disobedience. Though in retrospect it was foolish--especially for the senior citizen crowd. I'm glad I didn't attend. (Apparently the Party's top leadership--Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters, or Steve Clark--also didn't attend. Make of that what you will.) [Update: Ms. Waters did attend the meeting and is sitting in the second row.]

Weirder is The Militant's vigorous defense of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings. In the April 13th issue Roger Calero writes

Essential needs like 12-step program meetings — the regular, face-to-face peer gatherings key to recovery for alcoholics and addicts, as well as their spouses and families — have been forced to close by shelter-in-place and lockdown edicts, and bans on even small gatherings, here and elsewhere.

This was almost certainly written after lockdown orders went into effect, so the context is very different from Larry Quinn's memorial.

Mr. Proyect's take is this:

If you want to see an explicit call, however, you can turn to a bizarre Militant article titled “Morality of capitalist rulers reflected in shutdown of AA.” It defended the right of alcoholics to attend weekly meetings even if it cost their lives from COVID-19 rather than cirrhosis of the liver.

Mr. Proyect himself can't decide whether Covid or alcoholism is the greater threat, and his uncertainty somehow renders the SWP "bizarre." But surely it's a fair question--the lockdown inevitably produces some trade-offs. Is it unreasonable to let individuals decide for themselves which risk is greater? Apparently not according to Mr. Proyect--he thinks that Mr. Cuomo should make such decisions for everybody, unilaterally.

To me, the "weird" part is The Militant's uncharacteristic support for a religious movement. In AA's 12 steps, "God" or "higher power" is explicitly mentioned in six of them. Belief in God is core to AA's success. That a supposedly Trotskyist organization is touting such virtues is astonishing.

In our politically polarized society, it's not surprising that people gravitate toward extreme positions. Our Marxist and pseudo-Marxist friends, such as Misters Proyect and Cuomo, take literally Marx's dictum  "from each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs."

Supporters of capitalism--especially Libertarians--will rephrase this.

From each an opportunity to apply his ability toward maximum economic benefit, both for himself and society, and to each according to his wants.

Only the free market allocates and organizes abilities efficiently. No other system works nearly as well--not state capitalism (aka fascism) such as practiced in China, and certainly not socialism, e.g., Cuba or Venezuela.

More important for the discussion here is the second clause--the contrast between needs and wants. Marxists (pseudo and otherwise) claim to know the difference. This leads to the distinction between essential workers and non-essential workers. Mr. Cuomo--acting now very much like a Marxist--believes that essential workers tend to people's needs, while the non-essential sort are only about wants. Misters Proyect and Cuomo claim to be smart enough to tell them apart.

Of course the governor is self-dealing. People who deliver groceries to the upper-middle class (e.g., Cuomo's political base, Mr. Proyect, and me) are deemed essential, while the waitress at the working-class diner is somehow a non-essential luxury. Supposedly waitresses spread disease, but grocery deliverers somehow don't.

To supporters of a free market the distinction is completely nonsensical. The other night on Fox News, Shannon Bream interviewed two small business owners from Atlanta--now legally allowed to reopen. One lady owned a beauty parlor--hair styling, facials, manicures, etc.--the owner herself did eyebrows. For her own safety she chose not to reopen, despite running up a big debt on her credit card.

The other lady owned a cross-fit gym, and armed with blue tape to mark out socially-distanced workstations, along with liberal quantities of sanitizer, she is back in business.

The only thing these two businesses have in common is that some stupid governor deemed them non-essential (as if nobody ever needed a haircut). But they're obviously completely different from each other, and the one-size-fits-all, essential category is silly.

People, including the president, criticized Georgia's Governor Kemp for reopening too soon. That would be a proper criticism if he'd required businesses to reopen. But as the Fox clip shows, both these ladies are very smart and know their businesses. They choose different strategies. The moral is Let Capitalism Reign. Businesses, their employees, and their customers will work out optimal solutions.

The Militant gives a good example of how this happens.

On March 26 an assistant manager at a sizable Walmart in the northern New Jersey area told Tetri Boodhoo that she had to take off the mask she had decided to wear, saying it was against company policy. The boss said she and any other workers not happy with this could take leave without any penalty — and without any pay. 

... After rejecting their demands, the boss consulted with higher-ups and backed down. Many workers — and customers too — considered this a victory. “You see, when we speak out together we can win,”

... Walmart bosses nationally have now reversed their position. They told the press March 31 that they intend to make available “high-quality masks” for any employee who wishes to wear them.

While this is more confrontational than seems necessary, it didn't take long for a meeting of minds between bosses, employees and customers--to the benefit of all concerned. Yet Mr. Proyect puts all his hopes in the supposedly unfailing wisdom of Mr. Cuomo, who thinks the only good business is a closed business.

Just to rant a little bit:

Aren't non-essential workers some vaguely sub-human folks who can't serve people's needs instead of merely their wants? That's what Mr. Cuomo implied when he told "protesters" to get "essential" jobs. So the lady, whose life savings and entire career are invested in the beauty business, should now go and deliver groceries to Mr. Proyect's house?

Or--aren't non-essential workers approximately the same as the deplorables? Admittedly the correspondence isn't exact, but surely close enough. Do people like Mr. Proyect really have it in for the lower middle class?

Perhaps Mr. Proyect is correct? Maybe the SWP isn't Marxist anymore? But at least they know who their customers are. The Militant's masthead proclaims "published in the interests of working people."

Seems right to me.

Further Reading:

• Trotskyists on the Pandemic
• Louis Proyect and the More-Poverty Solution
• The Militant Visits Manila

Book Review: Disunited Nations

I have a love/hate relationship with Peter Zeihan's new book, Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in a Disunited World.

Let's start with the bad news first.

Apart from editorial asides by the author, the book has no footnotes. The bibliography only includes five titles. There is no reference to historical models of geopolitics. Facts are offered without citations. Now I'm not a great fan of scholarship--academic monographs are not just boring, but useless. Reading through a forest of footnotes is tedious.

But without any context I have no way to know how trustworthy Mr. Zeihan's sources are. Is he just cherry-picking factoids to fit his story? Is he really such a genius that he can develop a whole geopolitical theory de novo out of thin air?

Is the man a serious thinker?--or merely a huckster trolling for consulting dollars? Yes, and yes.

I loved this book!

For clarity and concision it is unmatched. He tells a simple (too simple by half) story of the globe's future for the next generation. Story is the operative word--the book reads like a well-plotted novel. That makes me suspicious (is life really that straightforward?), but it's very readable. I think he's wrong in big ways, as I'll explain below. But the basic story seems true enough.

It goes like this:

After WWII, the Soviet Union, despite its intrinsic weaknesses, represented an existential threat to the United States. Our ingenious counter was to mobilize the world to our side. This was not done by brute force, nor by appeal to humanitarian principles. For the most part we bribed other countries to be our allies. The bribe consisted of three parts:

1. The US will guarantee your current borders. You do not need to defend yourself against your neighbors.
2. The US will guarantee your trade routes. Our navy will patrol the world and keep the seas free of pirates and military foes. Not merely was transit through the Panama and Suez canals open to all, but also through the Malacca, Hormuz, and even the Bosporus Straits.
3. The US market was open to your produce nearly without restriction. Whether German cars, Japanese electronics, Bengali textiles, or Chinese toys--anybody could sell anything in the USA tariff-free.

It worked like a charm. Apart from the US and the Soviet Union, military spending decreased around the globe. The NATO allies, for example, couldn't rouse themselves to even spend 2% of their GDP on defense. Piracy and privateering on the high seas, along with toll-collecting at choke points disappeared. Countries as diverse as Germany, South Korea and China got rich selling into US market.

The world got rich, including the United States. Mr. Zeihan refers to this era--from 1945 to nearly the present day--as the post-war Order. But now the Order is breaking down, again for three reasons.

1. The Soviet Union is no more. The empire collapsed in 1991, and the successor state, Russia, is itself in terminal, demographic decline (so claims Zeihan).
2. Fracking changes everything. North America is now energy independent, and indeed, we're a net energy exporter. The result is we have little cause to police the Middle East anymore, and certainly not the Persian Gulf or the Straits of Hormuz.
3. While in 1950 the US produced about 50% of global gdp, today the number is only 25%. That's certainly not because the US is poorer, but rather because the Order hugely increased wealth globally. Thus we can no longer serve as a market of last resort, nor can we cover the world's defense costs.

As said, it's too simple by half. While the Soviets inspired NATO, it seems unlikely that they were the only reason for the Order. Surely American business understood the virtue of global markets, even in 1945. There were strong economic reasons for the Order. Accordingly, the collapse of the Soviets did not presage the imminent demise of the Order--it's hung on for nigh 30 years--again for its economic benefits.

Mr. Zeihan's tale leaves out some important trends. New technology spread around the world--the rise in global wealth is as much due to that as the American policeman. The Order’s decline may be due to a sharp drop in global productivity beginning in the mid '70s as much as anything else. Indeed, Mr. Zeihan’s story depends too heavily on geography and demographics--important topics to be sure, but not necessarily more important than technology, history, culture, or even genetics.

Still, I think he's mostly right, and the Order's inevitable demise may lead to the consequences he foretells. I think he's right about China. I think he's wrong about Germany.

China has five existential problems, and while it might survive one or two of them, solving all five of them simultaneously is impossible. The Chinese economy will crash, and Zeihan predicts the country will not survive as a unitary state. The five issues are:

1. While Americans do farming, the Chinese do gardening. This is because they had a surplus of agricultural labor, and gardening is more productive per acre than farming. By shipping labor off to the cities, China was forced into mechanized farming, which hasn't worked too well. Despite the huge capital investment, agricultural productivity has not grown proportionately. Mr. Zeihan predicts famine in China's near future.
2. China has over-invested in housing. Housing is the primary investment tool for middle-class Chinese, including many second- and vacation- homes, similar to what the stock market is in the US. By building too many houses, there will inevitably be a crash in prices, wiping out the wealth of much of the population.
3. Chinese demography is terrible. Unlike the US (with our large Millennial Generation), Chinese baby boomers were limited to one child each. Thus China is older than the United States, and it's labor force is actually shrinking. It's very difficult to grow an economy when your labor force is shrinking and the bulk of your population is retiring.
4. China has insufficient natural resources. It produces very little of its own energy, importing most from the Persian Gulf (to which, absent the US Navy, access is not guaranteed). It can't produce enough food to feed itself, and also must import the fertilizers and other inputs for its agriculture. Given the shortage of labor, the reversion to labor-intensive gardening looks unlikely. 
5. China is too big to be an export power. Economic success depends on a sharp increase in domestic consumption. But consumers are in the ages 30-50 demographic, i.e., the generation that doesn't exist in sufficient numbers in China. And they're not having any children, either. The result is Chinese consumption is purchased only by government debt, i.e., the government buying all kinds of products that citizens can no longer consume. Every financial institution in the country is insolvent. It will end badly.

Moral: Don't invest money in China!

Now for Germany: Mr. Zeihan takes the Marxist saw too literally: history repeats itself, first as tragedy, and then as farce. The "Germans" invaded Russia first in 1914, and then again in 1940. Contrary to Marx, Mr. Zeihan thinks they'll do it a third time. I believe he's ignoring history.

There were three "German" empires (Reich). The First Reich was under Charlemagne, founded in the Eighth Century, and that really was a German empire (without scare quotes). The capital was in Aachen, in the Rhineland. The Second Reich was founded by Bismarck in 1871, with it's capital in Berlin. But it wasn't really a German Empire, but rather a Prussian one.

The Prussians are originally a Baltic people--Old Prussian, spoken until the 18th Century, is related to Lithuanian. Ancestral Prussians lived in what became known as East Prussia, today parts of Lithuania and northeast Poland. They were first conquered by one of Charlemagne's heirs, and took to German language and culture with some enthusiasm. But they are not ethnic Germans--neither then nor now. They're Prussian. Mr. Zeihan seems to think they're just another species of "German."

Bismarck was very aware of this--his goal was a Prussian empire, not a German one. Indeed, he wanted the Kaiser to be dubbed the Emperor of the Germans rather than the German Emperor (it is only by accident that he didn't get his wish). He treated Germany proper (the Rhineland, Baden-Wurttemburg, Bavaria and Austria, along with Alsace and Lorraine--i.e., Catholic or Roman Germany) as colonies to be exploited. (This was especially true in Alsace and Lorraine.)

And even though Hitler was an ethnic German, the Third Reich was also a Prussian empire, not a German one. It's the Prussians who had an issue with Russia. The Drang nach Osten was never a German emotion, but solely a Prussian one.

In the meantime, Prussia has been completely destroyed. They've been ethnically cleansed from their native homeland. Today they live mostly in the former East Germany--a geography that has long been a Prussian satrapy. Berlin is the capital of Prussia, not Germany.

The Germans, properly understood, have no cause to pick a fight with Russia. And I doubt the Prussians have the resources to even think about it. More likely is Germany will re-divide into two states along the former iron curtain: proper Germany to the West, and a rump Prussia in the East.

I don't think Mr. Zeihan's story about Germany makes much sense, for this and other reasons. But his book is a lot of fun and well worth reading.

Further Reading:

• Book Review: Capitalism Alone
• Comrade Keith L. Writes About China
• Book Review: The Absent Superpower

Book Review: Human Diversity

The full title of Charles Murray's recent book is Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race and Class. It's a dense, tightly-reasoned, data-packed, expertly-written tome that will change the world. Or rather, the subject it discusses will change the world.

The major purpose of the book is to bring the educated layman up to date on the science of human genetics. Thanks to spectacular advances since 1980, and especially since the complete mapping of the genome in 2005, it is now possible to shed some serious light on the old nature vs. nurture question. While these results have until now stayed mostly within the specialist, scientific community, it is Mr. Murray's view that before the end of this decade, the consequences of this new knowledge will impact every aspect of our lives.

A short, oversimplified summary of the story goes like this: Back in the old days (before 1980) it was supposed that most human traits were the result of a gene or two, or perhaps maybe half a dozen. In this context we are using the word gene to refer to a bit of DNA that actually codes for a protein. In those days people supposed there were 100,000 or more genes.

This had numerous consequences. First, there was fear of genetically modified babies. If we could just change a specific gene, then we could make children much more intelligent. This possibility was never remotely realistic.

Then people assumed that evolution happened very slowly. Most mutations in actual genes are deleterious--resulting in birth defects or death. Only a very few are beneficial, and even those will need about 2000 generations (40,000 years) to spread from one individual to the entire human population.

Even then, it was understood that the bulk of our DNA was not part of a gene, i.e., didn't code for anything. Folks didn't know what that excess DNA did--it was often called junk DNA. Today we know different. It appears there are only about 20,000 actual genes in the entire genome. By far most DNA is in the non-coding portion. It appears that non-coding DNA regulates gene expression in some complex way.

While mutations in the genes are still usually deleterious, mutations in the non-coding parts of the genome tend to not have much effect. Therefore mutations accumulate there. Many of them spread across the human species: certain mutations that occur in more than 1% of individuals are called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (pronounced snips). Wikipedia claims that more than 335 million SNPs have been found in our species, while any given individual will have between four and six million SNPs.

While an individual SNP has little effect, cumulatively the SNPs make a big difference. For example, it is now known that millions of SNPs help determine how tall you will be. With enough data and a big enough computer, one can isolate those SNPs that correlate with height.

So today we understand there isn't a "gene" for height, nor for personality/behavioral traits like intelligence, empathy, honesty, conscientiousness, etc. Yet we know that all these traits are significantly heritable--that is depend on our DNA. But instead of counting genes by the handful, we count SNPs by the thousands. Thus almost all traits (both physical and behavioral) are polygenic, in some cases nearly omnigenic (involving contributions from nearly all your DNA).

It's the SNPs that drive human evolution, and sufficiently fast that evolution can (and does) happen in historical time.

It is possible to count SNPs that enhance a certain trait, such as height or tendency toward schizophrenia. This leads to the polygenic score for that particular trait. Since your SNPs are fixed at birth, one can readily calculate your odds of being schizophrenic later in life. (It will never be 100%--environmental effects alter the odds significantly).

Likewise, there is a polygenic score for IQ. It cannot predict your IQ as an adult--for which the environment contributes about 40% of the variance--but it definitely narrows the field. If your child is born with a high polygenic score for IQ, then it might be worth saving money to send her to Harvard.

There are polygenic scores for things like criminality. The optimist will say that by judicious interventions we can prevent that outcome from occurring. The pessimist will fear that we'll be punishing people in advance of any crime--simply on the basis of their polygenic scores. I think they're both probably right--it is a brave new world coming on.

A second theme in Murray's book is an argument against the socialization theory. This theory--standard groupthink at American colleges--maintains that all differences between genders, races, and classes are merely social constructs, and have no underlying basis in biology. I'll mention that prior to 1980 this was a plausible idea, but since then, and especially since the rise of modern genomics, it becomes completely untenable.

Mr. Murray discusses at length the differences between men and women, who differ by an entire chromosome. There are genetic, physiological and psychometric differences between the sexes, compared to which "socialization" pales into insignificance. That said, it is not a simple switch--there is a continuum between male and female in nearly all traits. Few men have exclusively "male" traits, while few women are exclusively "female."

Murray uses facial features as an example. Consider the kinds of metrics facial recognition software might use: relative length of nose, relative distance between the ears, etc. Suppose there are twenty such metrics. It may be that women have slightly shorter noses (relatively) than men. But the effect is not very large--many women have noses longer than the average man, but most women don't.

So it is with all the other metrics. Women congregate slightly on one side of the spectrum, while men predominate mostly on the other, with a large overlap in the middle. Very few men are "masculine" on all twenty measures, and neither are many women "feminine" on all measures.

And yet it is easy to distinguish male faces from female faces. Even though each effect is small, the accumulated effects are big enough to see the difference. Only in a few cases is it truly ambiguous--I think of Rachel Maddow, for example. Two corollaries: facial recognition software can distinguish between male and female faces most of the time; it takes a skilled artist to draw an obviously female face, since most of the differences are so subtle.

Similarly, racial and ethnic differences show up in polygenic scores. That's how sites like 23&Me work their magic. Those very same polygenic scores imply ethnic differences in disease susceptibilities, physical attributes, and personality traits. Race is not just "skin deep" as the pre-1980 school would have it.

Class differences also depend on polygenic scores.

I'll close with some comments on how I think Murray's book will be received, especially by my former colleagues at Local State College.

First, most of the people who fancy themselves as experts on Race, Class and Gender are committed to the social construct theory and won't change their minds. But science progresses one retirement at a time, and these folks--tenured baby boomers--are not that long for the academic world. I don't think they're being replaced.

Second, those same self-proclaimed experts are typically in English and education departments. They know nothing about statistics. (Yes, I know--education faculty should know some stats, but I don't think they generally do.) One doesn't need a lot of statistics to read Murray's book, but a college-level introduction to the discipline strikes me as a prerequisite. (Sociologists have no excuse here.)

Finally, "Charles Murray" is a dirty word in those quarters. He should have written the book under a pseudonym. As the book has just come out, I can't blame them yet for not having read it, but they won't have read it five years from now, either.

So yes, while it will pass the academy by, I predict there will be a revolution in our understanding of human behavior. I'm not sure it will all be good. Lots of people (e.g., inhabitants of red states) will be classed as vaguely subhuman because of their average polygenic scores, as will many other groups of people.

There are some things this book should never change, concepts of morality, justice, and human worth among them. No polygenic score is an excuse to deny anybody their human rights. As Mr. Murray recently opined, religion becomes more important. Absent some kind of revival, the temptation to equate polygenic scores with human worth becomes irresistible.

You should definitely read Charles Murray's book. But whether you do or not, for better or worse it will definitely change your life.

Further Reading:

• Book Review: By The People
• Book Review: The Righteous Mind
• Book Review: A Troublesome Inheritance

Trotskyists on the Pandemic

My Trotskyist friends have all opined on the coronavirus crisis. And well they should, because finally they have something that might actually rise to the level of a "crisis," unlike all the other mythological "crises" they have previously invented (climate, education, decline in living standards, etc.).

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Here is a brief review of relevant articles. Let's begin with the Statement By Socialist Resurgence  (SR), which sums up everything wrong with Trotskyist economics.

Slowing down the initial spread of COVID would have meant paying for massive testing campaigns in every country as soon as the virus was identified in China. In itself, this act would have meant large payments for doctors and equipment, not to mention the inevitable slowdowns in production as workers test positive and choose to self-quarantine. A rational response to the virus means workers and their dependents must not engage in productive activity while also being sustained in all of the necessities of life.

Consider the last sentence: workers and dependents must not engage in productive activity. Presumably "workers and dependents" include people employed by grocery stores, pharmacies, delivery services, not to mention farmers, tractor mechanics, grain haulers, meat packers, etc. None of those people can go to work. Yet everybody is gonna get free food? How?

Further, doctors (who presumably are also banned from working) are now supposed to provide "free" healthcare. I assume that means they're supposed to work for free, like they do in Cuba. At very best they'll get paid in little green pieces of paper--with which they'll be able to buy nothing at all because nobody else will be producing anything.

The ridiculous assumption is that the "bourgeoisie" have some huge stash of food held in reserve that they can now personally distribute to the working class. Imagine Bill Gates riding a bicycle delivering pizzas.

This is the free unicorn theory of economics. It makes no sense.

SR can't help but resurrect old eco-wheezes, blaming the virus on: deforestation and forest fires; global trade, especially with more remote areas; industry reaching deep into hitherto untouched forest uncovering disease-ridden animals ready to transmit to humans (a silly thesis); the stock market. Ultimately, they blame civilization--we should all return to some primitive hunter-gatherer existence when everybody was happy and life expectancy was 32 years.

The truth is that Covid-19 originated in a live-animal market in Wuhan. Or, for the more conspiracy-minded, it was caused (probably inadvertently) by an escaped virus from a nearby research lab. None of this has anything to do with forest fires.

James Fortin, in an article in Socialist Action (SA), is absolutely obsessed with Donald J. Trump. In his imagination the spread of the virus was caused by: Trump refusing to implement the Defense Production Act; Trump suggesting that "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF" (caps in Fortin's original); Trump disobeying his own medical advisers; Trump personally responsible for denying masks and PPE to healthcare workers; Trump originally underestimating the seriousness of the disease; and last but not least, Trump wanting the stock market to go up.

If only Hillary had been elected president! The world would just be so much better!!

Like SR’s piece, an article by Roy Landerson in The Militant concentrates on economic issues, albeit much more intelligently. Mr. Landerson (who I believe is a pseudonym for Brian Williams) is a competent economics reporter. The problem with being competent is that it becomes impossible to issue the radical-sounding but ultimately really stupid demands. Accordingly The Militant comes across as veritably reformist. They're not really--they're just sane.

A key graf:

In the U.S. and around the world, the capitalist rulers are trying to stem the virus tide by shutting down much of the economy and globalized world production and trade, apart from “essential” industries and services. Borders have been closed, lockdowns and curfews imposed in ever more far-reaching fashion. As the social dislocation for hundreds of millions of working people increase, so too will attacks on our rights and political space.

Mr. Landerson's account is much more specific about what has and has not been shut down. Further, he never criticizes the principle behind the closures--namely to prevent the spread of the virus. His final sentence also rings true, albeit he uses weird, SWP language to express it.

Attacks on "our rights and political space" supposedly refers only to the working class, but really it affects everybody--especially academics and journalists. The warning is echoed by many others, including the prominent libertarian, Arnold Kling, who suggests that once governments obtain power, they are reluctant ever to concede it. I'm sympathetic to Mr. Kling's and The Militant's concern.

Mr. Landerson is alone on my list who mentions the other principle reason for economic distress.

An additional external shock, in the midst of this crisis, is the collapse of the crude oil production quotas and price fixing deal between the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Russia. This caused a glut amid falling demand and already plummeting prices. Low prices will hit highly indebted U.S. shale oil producers hard as well as the budgets of governments dependent on oil exports like Venezuela, Nigeria and Iran.

The US used to be a net energy importer, which means that falling oil prices were an unalloyed blessing to our economy. But now we're a net exporter and the shoe is on the other foot. The benefit to the American consumer (which given the lockdown they can't avail themselves of) are outweighed by the collapse in energy sector employment.

The Militant's sober analysis of the crisis leads to a sober list of demands, most of which have already been met by the government.

• They demand "emergency relief for the working class" and others, such as farmers and shop owners. The $1200 checks issued to each adult meets this request.
• They ask that the government build emergency hospitals--now being done in New York at the Javits Center and in Central Park, along with a hospital ship. Similar efforts are underway elsewhere.
• They request "weekly unemployment relief that working people can depend on — not just a one-time check in the mail that falls far short of what is needed." Indeed, unemployment benefits have been juiced by $600/week, and extended to 39 weeks.
• They want a "government-funded public works program to put millions to work at union-scale wages." In government they call that an "infrastructure bill," and it does look like it's coming. I oppose it because I think it's mostly wasteful pork.
• Finally, they want "a crash government program to greatly expand the resources to produce a coronavirus vaccine." I think that's happening. The problem with vaccines is they have to be proven both safe and effective, which takes time. No amount of money will make that time any shorter.

Two of the SWP's demands are out of sync with the public's. First, they want emergency and unemployment benefits to be extended to illegal immigrants. This is a political nonstarter. 

And second, they want the Federal government to take over the production and distribution of essential supplies. For some reason they think that the government will be better at logistics than Walmart or Amazon!? The government--which ordered hospitals to use virus tests that didn't work; that couldn't get the Obamacare webpages to work; which allows the military to buy hammers at a thousand dollars each; which can't get the 737-Max plane back in the air--that government is now supposed to be given a monopoly on essential medical supplies.

No thank you!

Finally, let me link to a wonderful article by Louis Proyect. It's not really political, but instead is a beautifully written memoir of what it's like to be a septuagenarian in New York City during a pandemic.

Further Reading:

• Socialist Resurgence Demands Steep Wage Cuts for Healthcare Workers
• Book Review: Kim Jong Un
• The SWP Defends Civilization