TraductionWHAT DOES MEAN “GET US BACK TO NORMALCY” IN THE MOUTH OF US AND EUROPEAN RULING CLASS ?
After the dot-com crash in 2000, the ruling class in capitalist countries was repeating the ritornello “get us back to normalcy.” This expression sought to recreate or re-establish capitalist rules and its sacro holy law of the profit.
For the U.S. that meant economic “recovery” as it was before the subprime mortgage crisis, That meant returning to how the economy was before 2008-2009. After the 2008-2009 crisis, US government pumped trillions of trillions of dollars in bailout for supporting flickering banks and Wall Street bankers. In domestic policy, the State police was reinforced and expanded and in foreign policy, Obama was preparing his “Arab Spring” and his criminal and bloody was in the Middle East and Latin America and especially his “pivot to Est Asia”, a containment policy aimed at containing China in its sphre of influence
For the European Union and its members after the 2008-2009 crisis, that meant imposing to European peoples a harsh dictatorship legalized by the Lisbon treaty of December 2007. The return to normalcy in domestic policy meant continuing and amplifying austerity policy implying cut off funding of education and dismantlement of health system services subjected from now on to the law of the profit and not to respond to human need. In foreign policy, Europe continue to be American satellite and to be un servile partner in the US endless wars all over the world.
Now, as we anew sink into an economic depression following the coronavirus, capitalism’s leaders and ideologues are repeating the same ritornello “get us back to normalcy” Why? By closing businesses down, the coronavirus locks down the workforce and thus stopped the profits. Like in the precedent crashes, US is pumping trillions of trillions of dollars in support for the corporate and big capital and European states are doing the same in order to protect the capitalist order and to allow capitalist to continue exploiting the workforce in order to generate the profit. Consequently, under the pressure of the capital, no matter big, middle or small, US and European governments are preparing their own strategies for lifting the lockdown and allowing capitalist to continue their exploitation of the workforce as it was the case before the coronavirus crisis hit while thousands in US and hundreds in Europe are dying daily hit by the decease which continue to spread all over the world in the absence of vaccine able to contain it.
No matter if hundred of lives are lost every day in the European Union, the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council presented exit strategy called “The joint European Roadmap towards lifting COVID-19 containment measures, that will prepare the ground for a comprehensive recovery plan and unprecedented support for capitalist economy.
The exit strategy aims to return to the status quo ante, that means, allowing the functioning of the pre-virus order and the exploitation of the workforce illustrated by some measures like opening of internal and external borders, eventually restoring the normal functioning of the Schengen area. Among the recommendations, lifting of Internal border controls, lifting of travel restrictions, gradual reopening of borders to cross-border and seasonal workers, maintain an unobstructed flow of goods, restoring transport services, connectivity and free movement, supporting the corporate and saving businesses from bankruptcy, allowing anew gatherings of people and the reopening of schools and universities, gradual reintroduction of transport services and lifting of travel restrictions etc.Such European exit strategy is perhaps good for the capital and big business but very dangerous for the populations. Because Employers did not and do not now want to pay the costs of making workplaces safe and they want employees back on the job as they were before the coronavirus. That goal is not only dangerous to the health of the workers, it is also a direct economic threat. The U.S. and European establishment’s preferred policies prioritize returning to a capitalist economy with immense, dangerous weaknesses over serving public health now.
