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Chomsky: Ventilator Shortage Exposes the Cruelty of Neoliberal Capitalism

April 01, 2020

C.J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT

“…But scientific understanding is not enough. There has to be someone to pick up the ball and run with it. That option was barred by the pathology of the contemporary socioeconomic order. Market signals were clear: There’s no profit in preventing a future catastrophe. The government could have stepped in, but that’s barred by reigning doctrine: “Government is the problem,” Reagan told us with his sunny smile, meaning that decision-making has to be handed over even more fully to the business world, which is devoted to private profit and is free from influence by those who might be concerned with the common good. The years that followed injected a dose of neoliberal brutality to the unconstrained capitalist order and the twisted form of markets it constructs.”

Outlining specific cases on point, Noam Chomsky argues that U.S. policy since Reagan has caused the ventilator shortage. Read full story here

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