Page 14 - Issue 14

Netanyahu, and hordes of other politicians
worldwide, have treated the health of their own
citizens with an unbearable lightness, failing to
grasp the obvious: Without health there can be no
economy. The relationship between our health
and the markets has now become painfully clear.
In the Israeli context we may add the obvious:
Without health there can be no army either. The
security of the country is predicated on the health
of its citizens.

The capitalism we have come to know in recent
decades – which is deregulated, which penetrates
all state considerations, which benefits the rich,
which creates abyssal inequalities (among others
in the health system itself) – will have to change.
The pandemic is going to cause unfathomable
economic damage, massive unemployment, slow
or negative growth and it will affect the entire
world, with Asian economies possibly emerging as
the stronger ones.

Banks, corporations and financial firms must be
made to bear the burden, along with the state, of
coming out of the crisis and become partners in
the collective health of their employees. They will
have to contribute to research, to emergency
preparedness, and to massive hiring drives, once
the crisis passes. They will have to bear the burden
of the collective effort to rebuild the economy,
even at the price of lower profits.

Capitalists have taken for granted resources
provided by the state – education, health, physical