Who said useless eaters

A decision to build a factory in a place with weak environmental laws, low wages and poor worker protection matters. Preferring share buybacks to increased wages or lower prices matters. Lobbying for taxpayer subsidies that transfer wealth from poor to rich matters.

They contribute to the problems listed in paragraph one in obvious ways. More damaging: the maximize rule infects real people with tragic faith in the magic of markets. A recent Business Insider article sheds further light on the corporation as sociopath:. The coronavirus crisis in the United States is only just beginning.

But it's not too early for some Americans to flout social distancing and isolation guidelines and return to work, according to some executives. Dick Kovacevich, the former CEO and chairman of Wells Fargo, told Bloomberg News that healthy workers under the age of 55 should return to work in April if the outbreak is controlled, saying that "some may even die" with his plan. Some of them will get sick, some may even die, I don't know," said Kovacevich, a current executive at Cisco and Cargill.

Do you want to take an economic risk or a health risk? You get to choose. While this iteration of capitalism sells itself to the public as indispensable to "liberty" and "freedom," its ultimate tendency is authoritarian and fascistic.

Such traits and goals make it a natural tool and weapon for Trump and his allies. While the American people and the world are paralyzed by the coronavirus pandemic, Attorney General William Barr is refusing to let a good crisis go to waste. As reported by Betsy Woodruff Swan for Politico, the Trump regime wants to use the coronavirus to enact a de facto state of martial law where basic legal rights are suspended :. The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States.

The move has tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and Donald Trump's critics — that the president will use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes. Already, he has cited the pandemic as a reason for heightening border restrictions and restricting asylum claims.

He has also pushed for further tax cuts as the economy withers, arguing it would soften the financial blow to Americans. And even without policy changes, Trump has vast emergency powers that he could deploy right now to try to slow the coronavirus outbreak.

Swan explains that these Justice Department requests "span several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how cases are processed and investigated," and appear to have important implications for habeas corpus, "the constitutional right to appear before a judge after arrest and seek release.

According to Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, this means that " you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government. That is something that should not happen in a democracy.

This union of neoliberal gangster capitalism and authoritarianism can result in a society ruled by "inverted totalitarianism. Antidemocracy, executive predominance, and elite rule are basic elements of inverted totalitarianism.

Antidemocracy does not take the form of overt attacks upon the idea of government by the people. Instead, politically it means encouraging what I have earlier dubbed "civic demobilization," conditioning an electorate to being aroused for a brief spell, controlling its attention span, and then encouraging distraction or apathy. The intense pace of work and the extended working day, combined with job insecurity, is a formula for political demobilization, for privatizing the citizenry.

Citizens are encouraged to distrust their government and politicians; to concentrate upon their own interests; to begrudge their taxes; and to exchange active involvement for symbolic gratifications of patriotism, collective self-righteousness, and military prowess. Above all, depoliticization is promoted through society's being enveloped in an atmosphere of collective fear and of individual powerlessness: fear of terrorists, loss of jobs, the uncertainties of pension plans, soaring health costs, and rising educational expenses.

Will the American people follow the commands of Donald Trump's coronavirus death cult? Are they willing to sacrifice their lives on the altar of "the economy" and Trump's re-election campaign by returning to work, ending social distancing and ignoring the warnings of scientists and public health experts?

Some will. Trump's cult members will follow his commands without question. They have been systematically programmed by Trump's cult and its disinformation machine. They understand that protecting and defending the cult leader must always come first. Many Americans who do not have sufficient savings, live on stagnant wages, have little if any job security, are not union members, cannot work from home and are otherwise stuck in a precarious economic conditions may well be coerced into risking their lives, because they lack other options.

If public opinion polls are correct, Trump is becoming more popular because of the coronavirus pandemic and the accompanying stagecraft and spectacle of his lie-filled "daily briefings. Including nearly all Republicans, of course. This evidence suggests that Trump, the Republican Party, the right-wing media and their corporate allies are effectively leveraging decades of programming in which most Americans have been taught to believe that patriotism, capitalism, freedom and consumerism are inexorably connected, if not in fact the same thing.

In the Age of Trump and his pandemic, such beliefs can kill. Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook. Sticky Header Night Mode.

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