Month: December 2021

NYTimes: Behind Low Vaccination Rates Lurks a More Profound Social Weakness ^

Behind Low Vaccination Rates Lurks a More Profound Social Weakness nyti.ms/3dhotgm

“Researchers find these sentiments echoed in poor and marginalized communities around the world. Despite the scale of the problem, experts are divided on which interventions might work best. Here, too, the experience of the United States might prove instructive. In America, anti-vaccine movements are as old as vaccines themselves; efforts to immunize people against smallpox prompted bitter opposition in the turn of the last century. But after World War II, these attitudes disappeared. In the 1950s, demand for the polio vaccine often outstripped supply, and by the late 1970s, nearly every state had laws mandating vaccinations for school with hardly any public opposition.

What changed? This was the era of large, ambitious government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. In the mid-’60s, the number of government-funded social programs targeting the poor and communities of color skyrocketed. The anti-measles policy, for example, was an outgrowth of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty initiatives. Government workers from initiatives like Head Start assisted in vaccination campaigns. In some cities, the government sponsored the creation of health councils, made up of community members, which served as intermediaries between health centers and the public. These councils embodied the idea that public health is effective only when community members share in decision making.

The experience of the 1960s suggests that when people feel supported through social programs, they’re more likely to trust institutions and believe they have a stake in society’s health. Only then do the ideas of social solidarity and mutual obligation begin to make sense.

The types of social programs that best promote this way of thinking are universal ones, like Social Security and universal health care. Universal programs inculcate a sense of a common good because everyone is eligible simply by virtue of belonging to a political community. In the international context, when marginalized communities benefit from universal government programs that bring basic services like clean drinking water and primary health care, they are more likely to trust efforts in emergency situations — like when they’re asked to get vaccinated.

If the world is going to beat the pandemic, countries need policies that promote a basic, but increasingly forgotten, idea: that our individual flourishing is bound up in collective well-being.”

Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone

Global Capitalism: China – US’s First Real Competitor in a Century [November 2021] ^

Global Capitalism: China – US’s First Real Competitor in a Century [November 2021]

https://youtu.be/6q5VsEew0ZM

Transcript

00:00

welcome friends to another global

00:02

capitalism live economic update

00:06

every other month we produce these

00:10

discussions these presentations

00:13

in the hope that they clarify

00:15

issues of importance in our daily lives

00:19

three organizations combine to produce

00:22

these events

00:24

one is the judson memorial church

00:27

off washington square in manhattan

00:30

which has hosted these until the

00:32

pandemic

00:33

required them to become virtual

00:36

the second organization is the left

00:39

forum

00:40

an annual gathering of activists and

00:42

academics which you can find more about

00:46

at leftforum.org

00:49

and finally the direct producer of each

00:51

of these democracy at work

00:55

and i’ll have more to say about that

00:57

particular organization in a moment

01:00

i would like to stress before we begin

01:03

that these virtual events

01:05

made available to you

01:07

cost money

01:09

and that we need to make them

01:11

fundraising events as well

01:14

when we met at the judson memorial

01:16

church everyone who came kicked in ten

01:18

dollars

01:20

the best conceivable way for you to

01:22

support us

01:23

is to go to

01:24

patreon.com and

01:27

gcleu

01:29

and there become a monthly sustainer for

01:32

whatever amount of money you like and

01:34

can afford

01:36

that would be the best because it allows

01:37

us to plan and organize the production

01:41

and the distribution

01:42

of these talks

01:46

it is important otherwise i wouldn’t be

01:48

taking up your and my time to talk to

01:51

you about this

01:53

finally for the holiday season coming up

01:56

uh i’m proud to announce that we have

01:58

issued a hard cover version

02:01

of the first book we published

02:03

understanding marxism but it has a new

02:07

introduction that i’ve written

02:09

uh that covers the last few years and

02:12

the relevance of marxism to

02:14

understanding them

02:17

if i dare say so i think it would make

02:19

an interesting present for interested

02:21

people and you can find out more about

02:24

that at our website democracy at work

02:28

dot info

02:30

and finally let me thank the patreon

02:32

community that already has gathered

02:35

around these gcleu events

02:38

for their ongoing support

02:40

it is invaluable and enormously

02:44

appreciated

02:46

today is talk and it’s going to take the

02:48

entirety of my presentation is about

02:51

china it’s a response to your requests

02:55

that i present an overview not only of

02:58

china but of this issue of china’s place

03:01

in the world relative to that of the

03:04

united states

03:06

so here’s the title for today’s talk

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china

03:12

the first

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real competitor

03:15

of the united states

03:17

in a century

03:19

and let me explain briefly that title

03:22

it’s a hundred years now that the united

03:24

states became

03:26

the dominant power in a world capitalist

03:30

system world war one changed everything

03:35

the major other contesters for global

03:38

power

03:39

britain

03:40

germany

03:42

were defeated and largely set back

03:45

they could no longer catch up to the

03:48

united states

03:49

something like that happened with japan

03:52

in the second world war and so on

03:55

the united states has not really had

03:58

a serious global economic and political

04:02

competitor

04:03

the soviet union never came close to

04:06

being that economically and basically

04:09

politically either

04:11

having nuclear weapons is a very

04:13

important fact but it is not

04:16

determinant of all else

04:19

china has it all

04:21

economic

04:22

competitiveness

04:24

political competitiveness

04:26

and military

04:28

power including nuclear power

04:31

the united states has not faced

04:34

a competitor on this scale for a century

04:38

and that should be kept in mind as a

04:40

backdrop a context

04:42

for everything that i have to say

04:46

i am neither an advocate nor an enemy of

04:49

the people’s republic of china

04:52

my presentation today

04:53

attempts to be balanced in explaining

04:57

what’s going on

04:59

rather than taking a particular position

05:02

about what’s going on

05:04

so i’m going to begin with china’s

05:07

achievements

05:09

and i’m going to begin with a story

05:12

the world is being changed among other

05:14

things by the development of very rapid

05:19

train transport around the world

05:22

really fast trains

05:24

new motors new locomotives new power

05:28

sources new tracks

05:29

and achieving extraordinary

05:32

speed which entails extraordinary

05:35

economies

05:37

economies of moving people and economies

05:40

of moving product

05:42

and this will translate it is already

05:46

translating into lower prices that can

05:49

be charged by producers and shippers who

05:53

can make use of much more rapid

05:56

train

05:57

transportation

06:00

there are a rapidly growing number of

06:03

rapid trains

06:05

in the world helping

06:07

the countries where they’re located to

06:09

become

06:11

economically stronger

06:13

and here’s the key fact

06:16

two-thirds of the world’s

06:19

fast trains

06:20

are located in the people’s republic of

06:24

china

06:26

the united states basically has none

06:29

even if you count

06:31

the train that runs from boston to

06:33

washington the asla

06:35

it is faster than our regular trains but

06:39

a good bit slower than the fast trains

06:42

i’m talking about and that are

06:44

exemplified above all else in the

06:47

people’s republic of china

06:51

the second achievement that is a story

06:54

but tells a lot

06:56

is the chinese practice of building

06:59

entire cities

07:02

before the people arrive

07:05

to live and work in them

07:08

a little mini fact

07:11

most of the large cities in the world

07:14

cities of a million or more

07:16

are located in the people’s republic of

07:19

china

07:21

that is not only because its population

07:24

is large but that it has developed in

07:27

part using those fast trains

07:30

a network of cities

07:33

built before the people settle into them

07:37

so that there’s a rational plan for how

07:40

the city is

07:42

built

07:43

a rational set of ways that the city can

07:46

grow in the future

07:49

it’s all coordinated with the

07:51

transportation networks roads

07:55

railroads airplanes and so on

07:59

it is a remarkable testament

08:02

to the possibilities the power

08:05

and the success

08:07

of the kind of economic planning that

08:10

china specializes in

08:14

what’s going on here is the next

08:16

achievement

08:18

the chinese deserve recognition for

08:22

they’ve organized a remarkable economy

08:26

partly government owned and operated and

08:29

run enterprises sizable part of their

08:32

economy

08:33

and an another part very large

08:36

of private capitalist enterprises

08:40

some chinese some foreign and some

08:44

partnerships between chinese and foreign

08:47

in other words it’s a classic mixed

08:50

economy

08:51

but what is interesting perhaps most

08:54

is that there is an overarching agency

08:59

which is the government

09:01

and in turn the partner of the

09:03

government the chinese communist party

09:06

who organize

09:08

and control

09:10

both parts

09:12

of their economic system the public

09:15

and the private

09:18

what this means we have now learned

09:21

it means that there’s an agency that can

09:25

coordinate the public and the private

09:28

resources that the chinese have natural

09:32

resources

09:33

capabilities in manufacturing and

09:36

services and shipping and transportation

09:39

coordinate these to bring them all to

09:42

bear on the prioritized objectives of

09:46

chinese economic and social development

09:51

i’m going to give you three quick

09:52

examples of what this ability to

09:56

mobilize and coordinate public and

09:58

private resources

10:00

by an overarching political authority

10:03

has accomplished in china for the last

10:06

25 years

10:08

the gdp the gross output of goods and

10:11

services in china

10:13

has grown on an average of six to nine

10:16

percent per year

10:18

the united states over the same period

10:20

of time saw a gdp growth of 2 to 3

10:24

a year

10:26

no contest

10:27

no comparability

10:29

china is growing three times faster than

10:32

the united states and has been doing so

10:36

year in and year out for a quarter

10:39

century

10:40

an amazing achievement