CAPITALISM, EARTHQUAKES, PROFIT AND DEATH

Reading and thinking about the earthquake in Italy on April 7th, what stood out for me was the fact that most deaths and injuries can be attributed to the fact that the majority of the 10,000-15,000 buildings that collapsed were new buildings that did not meet safety standards.A 59 year old postal worker in the area “upset by the shoddy construction of the modern apartment buildings” states “the problem is that the new apartments are not as strong as they should be. The old ones can resist this to some degree. They must control the construction of the new buildings.”
Another quote reads “experts say the vast majority of buildings in the most vulnerable regions of earth-quake prone Italy don’t meet modern seismic safety standards. “(Associated Press)
Reading this reminds me of how important it is as a Marxist to read and interpret the world, big things and small, from a historical and materialist perspective. We have all had what I call “aha” moments in our lives- eye-opening moments, where we are able to see clearly the destructive yet often hidden logic of capitalism. And the way we see the world is absolutely different from there on in.
In the early 90’s as a graduate student in a Global Feminism course I was listening to a Peruvian Marxist professor talking about capitalism, neo-liberalism, structural adjustment programs, the IMF etc, and their adverse effects on working and poor women in Peru and in all “developing countries.” It was when she rooted the causes of a devastating cholera epidemic in Peru that killed thousands, in the economic policies of capitalism, when what I thought I already knew was suddenly hammered home in a manner so concrete that I won’t forget that moment -when I finally understood that so called “natural” events and phenomena can never be accurately understood outside of history. Finally I realized the material and historical causes of events, up till now only partially grasped. I understood the myriad of ways that capitalism kills, not just through wars and starvation but through continual and persistent economic policies that in this case caused a cholera epidemic when money and resources were pulled out of existing infrastructure , when safety standards are reduced to bare bones etc. in order to make profits for 2 percent of the world’s population.
Some may ask – why did it take you long to understand this- as a Marxist this is pretty basic! Yes it is for sure but what this moment represented for me was a complete turn- around in the way I read the world on an everyday basis, in the manner that I understand the relationship between nature and society from the perspective of class analysis and struggle. Everything just snowballed from this moment. As a nurse I could understand why deadly infections were suddenly on the rise in hospitals in Canada, an advanced capitalist economy. It was not just so called antibiotic resistant superbugs that were killing patients in what should be safest place for sick people to be – it was related to real economic factors such as severe cutbacks in support workers. I wrote an article in our socialist publication at the time that directly related the deaths of many in a small town in Ontario from e-coli infections in the water to the cutbacks of unionized public service workers in the government agency responsible for testing water – an article published in my union newsletter.
So what does this have to do with the earthquake in Italy and the deaths of over 235, mainly working people and their families? The same as the catastrophic events of Hurricane Katrina were directly related not just to nature but to the political and economic system in which these natural events occur.
The Capitalist system and the IMF, the enforcing agency responsible for the so called structural adjustment programs, a euphemismistic term for the gutting of “costly” material infrastructure like health care and public utilities, clean water and sewage systems etc, are also responsible for the gutting to bare bones “costly” building codes and safety standards and regulations. We have all heard of the collapse of huge factories in Indonesia and Thailand where hundreds of workers were killed, fires that wiped out entire factories with workers trapped or locked in in free trade export zones ; women suffering miscarriages and a rise in birth defects as well as reproductive cancers as result of potent toxic pesticides in the cut flower and fruit industries in Central and South America. Pesticides chemically engineered to deteriorate in toxicity as they travel north to the American and Canadian consumer.
So the over 200 deaths in Italy this week could have been prevented or at the very least reduced, were these same “cost cutting” , deadly measures avoided.
Building codes and safety standards save lives. But they eat into profits. We all know what is more important to capitalism-profits over human life. This can only be overcome when workers and ordinary people own the profits of our labour and plan our societies to produce, nourish, shelter working people and keep us safe.