Coronavirus Pandemic Brings to Light the Need for a Stronger Public Sector

Details: Published on Friday, 24 April 2020 23:26; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2072 ... April 25, 2020
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Coronavirus Pandemic Brings to Light the Need for a Stronger Public Sector

Subin Dennis

It is a sign of how bad things are when the editorial board of the Financial Times (FT), the world’s leading business newspaper, carries an editorial calling for “radical reforms… reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades.” The FT editorial of April 3 has advocated, among other things, a more active role for governments in the economy, ways to make labour markets less insecure, and wealth taxes. The FT’s editorial board, increasingly concerned about saving capitalism from itself, had written about the need for “state planning” and a “worker-led economy” last year in August. But the April 3 editorial has garnered much more attention since it comes amidst a massive crisis.

By now it has become obvious that substantial state intervention in the economy -- frowned upon by the apostles of neoliberal economics -- is back to the center stage across the world.

The situation is such that the public sector, long maligned by neoliberal economists... and weakened by governments beholden to neoliberalism, is playing a major role in the fight against coronavirus. Its role would have been much more effective and wide-ranging if it hadn’t been hit hard by decades of fund cuts and waves of privatization. Nevertheless, with the ineffectiveness of private production with profit motive as its driving force to handle a crisis becoming more evident, the public sector, production with state direction, and some amount of planning are making a major comeback.