There’s been endless pontificating about how the coronavirus outbreak shows how capitalism has failed.  Climate activist Greta Thunberg (and apparent virus expert, at least as far as CNN is concerned) insisted that this proves that “our societies aren’t very resilient.”  Leftist writers at Salon.com and Al-Jazeera insist that this proves capitalism failed.  And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and other progressives are attempting to use the crisis as a reason to institute socialist reforms.  

And a few days ago, the rather absurd hashtag #RIPCapitalism trended in response to news that Jeff Bezos was well on his way to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.  Because Amazon is making a killing delivering much needed items to people sequestered in their homes.  It’s not clear how a capitalist making money by providing for the populace during a pandemic is a failure of capitalism, but I never considered Twitter to be a particularly logical place.

The fallout from the virus isn’t necessarily a failure of capitalism.  America and many European nations were caught off guard, but the capitalist nations of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan took action early and weathered the storm fairly well.  So this hasn’t been because of any inherent weakness of capitalism.  It’s just that certain capitalist countries didn’t react as quickly and as well as others.  It’s about specific policies, not about the economic systems in those countries.  It does indicate a failure in communism, though.  Specifically, in the ultimate source of the virus (and a surprisingly large number of others), China.  

It’s believed that the virus came from bats.  Bats that are sold for food in the somewhat less than sanitary “wet markets.”  But why do the Chinese eat bats?  Bats are notoriously unsanitary.  They’re basically flying rodents.  It’s well known that spores from bat guano can cause cave disease.  This is primarily a lung disease, but it can also get into the brain and cause significantly altered behavior.  This is where the term “bat shit crazy” comes from.  So what could possibly motivate someone to eat something like this?

The answer has to do with the numerous famines that came from Mao’s failed communist policies.  Policies such as the ill-fated Four Pests Campaign, where the Chinese attempted to eliminate rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.  Eliminating sparrows in particular was a huge mistake.  The Chinese government believed that because sparrows would occasionally eat crops in the field, that killing them would increase crop yields.  What they failed to realize is that sparrows also eat insects that eat crops.  Without them, these insects ran wild and crop yields fell.

This and other policy failures resulted in mass starvation.  So, when the more common meats in the human diet were in short supply, the Chinese government encouraged farmers to raise certain wild animals as food, including bats.  Although food is no longer in short supply in China, at least not as much as it once was, the practice of eating bats and other strange animals became embedded in the culture.  It’s actually become something of a bourgeois thing to do, and not the act of desperation it would have been decades ago.  And if Mao hadn’t bumbled so many times, it’s likely that it would not be a part of their culture.

This is not the only failure of government policy that contributes to China’s poor health.  Despite the outward face that China puts on with cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong which appear to be the picture of modernity, health hazards are common in China.  They have out of control air pollution.  They lose thousands of workers per year in coal mines due to unsafe conditions.  And the wet markets aren’t the only unsanitary conditions in China.  Chinese rivers are full of trash and sewage, for example.

Similarly unsafe conditions supposedly exist in China’s viral research labs.  Some reports suggest that a research lab in Wuhan may be the ultimate source of the infection.  Scientists don’t believe the virus was engineered, but the possibility that it was a naturally occurring virus that was being studied in the lab has not been ruled out.  

It’s obviously more likely that a virus being studied in a lab would be naturally occurring one.  Most viruses studied in labs are not engineered.  At least, one would hope.  I think we would all prefer that people not spend much time engineering viruses.  But there have been reports that the lab in Wuhan had atrocious biohazard controls, and the Chinese, unsurprisingly, have been very much against having international inspectors review the site.  This has naturally aroused suspicions of a cover up.  It’s not uncommon for an authoritarian communist government to prioritize face-saving over problem solving.

China’s communist government appears unable to keep things clean.  It reminds me of the utter rot and environmental degradation we saw in places like East Germany or Czechoslovakia before and shortly after the iron curtain fell.  The communist governments of Eastern Europe were an absolute mess.  And so is China.  It’s not surprising that so many viruses have come from there. 

The top down nature of their government concentrates too much power in too few hands, so when one of the communist party bosses makes a mistake, there are not sufficient checks and balances in the system to correct for it.  In addition, the Chinese government has no respect for basic human rights, like free speech.  If the people were able to criticize the government, they would be able to restrain them from these missteps.  

Instead, the government suppresses anything that might make them look bad.  But this disaster may be too big for them to suppress the truth.  We already know they silenced the scientist who discovered the virus, and he ultimately died from the disease.  And the New York Times also reports that the party silenced citizens in Wuhan who spoke out against the government.

This reminds me of the time the Soviet Union tried to suppress the truth of the Chernoybl disaster and spread misinformation.  But the disaster was too big to cover up, and the truth eventually got out.  Mikhail Gorbechev, the last general secretary of the communist party of the Soviet Union believed that the catastrophe may have been the thing that finally brought the Soviets down.  And many, such as renowned historian Niall Ferguson, believe that COVID-19 may be China’s Chernobyl.

Many critics of China are proposing all sorts of sanctions to seek redress from China.  Some have even proposed cancelling the debts owed to China.  This is probably a bad idea, since it would damage the credit of the countries who do so and also the global debt markets.  Others propose tariffs or seizure of Chinese assets.  Many companies are considering moving their operations in China to other countries, perhaps even back to their home countries.  And countries who were heavily involved in China’s Belt and Road infrastructure plan are threatening not to pay China for the work done as recompense for the damage done by the virus.  These things could decimate China economically.  And the same way economic troubles contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the blowback from COVID-19 could cause the Chinese communist party to come crashing down.

The Chinese government knows this, and their propaganda arms are cranking up and pushing back against criticism.  Early on, China attempted to float the idea that the virus actually came from the United States.  This is obviously balderdash, but it’s something that many Chinese people believe, since Chinese censors would block any information not approved by the government.  The party has more recently insisted that the West stop finger pointing.  And, predictably and tiresomely, they have tried to push the idea that the criticism is “racist”.

But as long as the criticism is directed at the Chinese government, and the Chinese Communist Party, it is not and can not be racist.  Criticism of policies and mistakes is inherently unracist.  We would literally be judging these institutions and the people who run them by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

There is a chance this will cause the collapse of the party.  Which I hope is true, primarily for the sake of ordinary Chinese citizens who live under their boot.  The Chernobyl disaster was a failure of communism and exposed in the Soviet Union the inefficiencies, inherent weaknesses, and vast corruption that seems inevitable with communist countries.  The coronavirus may do the same thing for China.

An open, democratic, and free society would be far less likely to produce these viruses.  Capitalist countries are generally more sanitary than others.  A free China could finally produce a government that could clean up the messes in China.  The virus may finally expose the inherent weaknesses of China’s communist system, and finally free it’s people the way Eastern Europe was liberated thirty years ago.