The decline occurred long before the coronavirus began to spread in the United States.
A UN survey even before the pandemic began showed that 29.3 million people in the US are “sometimes” or “often” hungry; 40 million are poor and half a million do not even have a roof over their heads. The events of 2020 have only revealed these problems. They have shown that no other rich country in the world has such a poor public health infrastructure as the USA. They showed a terrifying level of arbitrariness on the part of American security forces that can only be compared to South Africa.
Given these grim facts, the relative stability of the American capitalist system is surprising, writes The Guardian. However, the publication does not rule out that the situation will soon change.
“Faced with all this, as well as with the inability to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, the American state looks sadly ineffective and increasingly devoid of legitimacy”, – the article says.
Against this backdrop, it is increasingly possible to see the order of the establishment being challenged more and more boldly in the US. For example, the publication reminds us of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the unexpected fallout of Bernie Sanders. But the problem for the left is not only to achieve power, but also to restore the American Republic.
At one time, this idea was embodied in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Course. His administration insisted on creating new agencies to ensure compliance with labour laws, reorganised the executive branch and attempted a radical modernisation of the US Supreme Court. Although Roosevelt’s success was limited, he avoided making the US “the worst possible world”, writes The Guardian. Despite this, elites ensured that the working movement could not take root in the US as firmly as other developed countries of the last century.
“The result is that the state is completely inadequate to address either slow crises such as hunger and poverty or more acute ones such as coronavirus and climate change”, – the article says.
Left-wing American figures have long been trumpeting about the need for some change. Only the states do not need minor reforms, but a fundamental transformation of the capitalist system.