We would like to dedicate this article to the memory of Thomas J. Waters, housing researcher and great friend to the New York City housing movement, who died of complications from COVID-19 on April 4.
April 14, 2020. The number of people who have died from COVID-19 in our city, New York City, jumped past 10,000. Each day brings news of loss, borne by the Internet or by the incessant waves of ambulance sirens heard across the city. New Yorkers like to think of themselves as being at the center of the world, an idea greatly facilitated by the city’s being a real and symbolic center of global capitalism. At the same time, it becomes clearer by the day that not only is COVID-19 leading to significant failures in capitalism, but also that capitalism is failing a world beset by the novel coronavirus.
On one hand, the social distancing measures mean that most business—and certainly the tourism that is one of New York City’s economic backbones—has ground to a halt, throwing millions out of work, decimating their incomes and government tax-receipts, alike. On the other hand, the predatory quality of American capitalism, from the systematic exclusions from social benefits for many low-wage workers, to chronic wage-theft, unlivable wages, lack of health care, disproportionately polluted neighborhoods, and finance-fueled rentierism and asset-stripping of communities of color have both virtually guaranteed that the COVID-19 crisis would hit working-class communities and communities of color in vast disproportion, and that these very communities would be largely neglected in everything from federal relief payments and distribution of personal protective equipment to any kind of planning for the aftermath.
