In the Year of the Rat

But what about the morality of hoarding products that can prevent the spread of the virus, just to turn a profit?Colvin said he was simply fixing "inefficiencies in the marketplace." Some areas of the country need these products more than others, and he's helping send the supply toward the demand.He thought about it more."I honestly feel like it's a public service," he added. "I'm being paid for my public service."Jack Nicas, New York Times "17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer; nowhere to sell them"

Prediction is an essential skill for anyone charged with the planning of production. It is made easier by a monopoly but it is never possible to remove all uncertainty from the future. If it cannot escape our control in gross it will do so in the minute.


Foretelling the future is an intellectual skill historically presented as granted by the gods but, in the feast of private accumulation that is latter day capitalism, it is refined with all the tools of science into libraries of algorithms that must be entrusted to machines in order to complete before the predicted future arrives milliseconds later.


The brothers Colvin assembled their scheme without such assistance. It required, in fact, nothing more than recourse to numerous "little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods". Such strokes of genius are typically celebrated in the press as an indication of initiative, may even qualify for inclusion on their application should either decide to pursue an MBA, although their homespun economics nuggets make me think they already have been exposed to at least mainstream Econ101.


But, and here we pause to contemplate the semicolon of the title, their plan came to nothing. Worse than nothing. Failure to make the predicted "crazy money", loss of all capital, and public disgrace, maybe partial redemption for the curtain call donation to public institutions.


What did they miss?


At first glance they have obviously overlooked the ethics of their scheme. It's not surprising. Morally questionable commerce will usually get a pass whether it's found on this side of the law or the other. Up to a point. The brothers correctly predicted the surge of demand for sanitizer that the new virus would create but they completely failed to see the moral shift it would bring about.


It is the failure to see the road ahead that drew my interest to this story. The abundance of political blindness that has been evident across the globe is not entirely surprising and has been the subject of fierce criticism and valiant attempts at correction by medical personnel, local authorities, and the general population. It will be a fascinating part of the history of this pandemic.


But there is more at work here than the immediate battle being waged in our communities and in the markets. I think we are seeing a political economic break which is new to this world and which will be working itself out for years to come.

In the first place, contradiction is usually kept aloof from things, the sphere of being and of truth generally; it is asserted that there is nothing that is contradictory. Secondly, it is shifted into subjective reflection by which it is first posited in the process of relating and comparing. But even in this reflection, it does not really exist, for it is said that the contradictory cannot be imagined or thought. Whether it occurs in actual things or in reflective thinking, it ranks in general as a contingency, a kind of abnormality and a passing paroxysm of sickness.Hegel, The Science of Logic, Book II, Ch 2, Section 1

In the March 15 debate Biden was determined to limit the measures that would be required to protect the country from the catastrophic effects of the new virus.

You were asking about the crisis, what are we going to do about the crisis now? Which is incredibly consequential to millions and millions of Americans. And it's not going to be policy now. It's not going to be solved by a change in how we deal with healthcare. It's got to be solved with an emergency need right now. Right now, what do we do?

In other words, the prediction is of a health crisis of unknown duration followed by a return to the status quo. Almost universally the economic predictions take a similar course. Since this is an emergency everything is permitted but none of it will need to be kept in place once the emergency is past. This is wishful thinking for the ruling class. The working class must take a different view and I predict they will.


In a pure market crisis there is a rapid shedding of value but the relations of production hold fast. The loss is spread widely but unevenly across capital while workers, who may be laid off or remain on the job, all feel the loss of their bargaining position. Today we are seeing the emergence of contradiction far beyond what has been understood historically as a crash.


Across the globe production for profit, the essential activity of capitalism, is chunk by chunk grinding to a stop. Where production continues it does so because it is production of socially necessary use value. Not to say that no one is making a profit but an enormous part of capital is locked out, idled by official decree, by the evaporation of demand, or by worker refusal to remain on the line.


While only a few continue making money, at the same time, money pours forth to satisfy essential social needs. Debt is forgiven, at least for the time being. And this is not for the aged and the infirm only. It is not only for those who are often regarded as unworthy. It rains down upon the just and the unjust alike. Capital races to the head of the line to replenish its shrinking coffers to no one’s surprise but, unlike the preceding market panic, in this one it seems that everybody gets paid.


The most carefully guarded link in the ideological chain of international capital is being broken, the one between wages and profits. Everywhere, at the same time, we are viewers at the spectacle of production for social needs not for surplus value. We will not be surprised the bosses view this all as "crisis … not policy".

If we shadows have offended,Think but this, and all is mended-That you have but slumb'red hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend.If you pardon, we will mend.

We live, or once did anyway, in a world of political and economic predictability. And predictions of a rebound from this crisis are standard fare. The premise for these forecasts is a world without contradiction. Instead let's imagine one where each concession that capital has made for the sake of stability is clung to tenaciously when it inevitably attempts to withdraw it. They have no concept of a world where the needs of society govern production but we do and the coming months will be hard but instructive as never before.


As I write, alarms are sounding in the sanctuaries of capital to rally against this dry season, to implore the spirits of gain for the restoration of the steady rain of surplus value. The workforce, the source of value, is being called upon for sacrifice. In Chinese astrology the rat signifies abundance and wealth. The question for us now is whose abundance, whose wealth?