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One effect is the shockingly belated and limited testing, well
below others, making it impossible to implement the successful tes-
t-and-trace strategies that have prevented the epidemic from brea-
king out of control in functioning societies. Even the best hospitals
lack basic equipment. The U.S. is now the global epicenter of the
crisis.
This only skims the surface of Trumpian malevolence, but the-
re’s no space for more here.
It is tempting to cast the blame on Trump for the disastrous
response to the crisis. But if we hope to avert future catastrophes,
we must look beyond him. Trump came to office in a sick society,
afflicted by 40 years of neoliberalism, with still deeper roots.
The neoliberal version of capitalism has been in force since
Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, beginning shortly before. There
should be no need to detail its grim consequences. Reagan’s gene-
rosity to the super-rich is of direct relevance today as another bai-
lout is in progress. Reagan quickly lifted the ban on tax havens and
other devices to shift the tax burden to the public, and also autho-
rized stock buybacks — a device to inflate stock values and enrich
corporate management and the very wealthy (who own most of the
stock) while undermining the productive capacity of the enterprise.
Such policy changes have huge consequences, in the tens of tril-
lions of dollars. Quite generally, policy has been designed to be-
nefit a tiny minority while the rest flounder. That’s how we come
to have a society in which 0.1 percent of the population hold 20
percent of the wealth and the bottom half have negative net worth
and live from paycheck to paycheck. While profits boomed and
CEO salaries skyrocketed, real wages have stagnated. As econo-
mists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman show in their book,
The Triumph of Injustice, taxes are basically flat across all income
groups, except at the top, where they decline.
The U.S.’s privatized for-profit health care system had long been
an international scandal, with twice the per capita expenses of other

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