Jacobin Radio: Robert Brenner on Coronavirus

Suzi talks to Robert Brenner, who has just published “Escalating Plunder” in New Left Review 123, about the federal response to the shutdown of the economy in the wake of the coronavirus. The punchline is that the COVID-19 bailout, or Cares Act, not only escalates plunder, it is predation on steroids in a stalled economy in worsening decline. In other words, the bipartisan establishment has concluded that they can only intervene — and call it rescue — by underwriting the rip-off already in motion, bailing out the top 0.1 percent in the face of plunging production, employment, and profits. Brenner calls out predation. We get his analysis.