Health or Money in the Time of the Coronavirus

Due to the disruption caused by the Coronavirus, much of the international community has become trapped in one of the most intractable dilemmas that 21st century mankind has had to contend with: the debate between health and money. This dilemma has acquired even greater meaning with the summer resurgence of the Coronavirus in the United States and in other nations.

 There are two aspects to the money side of the Coronavirus issue. The first has to do with the necessity of making money for general, everyday survival and well-being. Little else matters as much as having the basic necessities of life: food, shelter, clothing. You obviously need money for these fundamentals and so earning it is of paramount importance.

A second aspect of money in the age of the Coronavirus entails not the imperative side of it, but the frenzied desire for the vulgar luxuries and status symbols that money can buy. At its worst moreover, money can go beyond satiating narrow consumerist impulses and cause immense harm to countless numbers of people. As a licentious and intoxicating projection of money gained an increasing foothold in the minds of many, the inevitable exploitation that followed because of greed, corruption, and a lust for power has crippled societies everywhere.

The howls of protest against the business lockdowns and the subsequent cries for financial relief in the United States have come up against the Coronavirus and the existential threat it represents. Which then to prioritize, health or money? There can be no better demonstration of this predicament than the contentious debate in America between staying healthy and earning your livelihood. 

All things being equal, being able to arrive at a balance presupposes a dialectic process that would in turn create a viable synthesis. In other words, both sides (health/source of income) have to be considered together. 

This is where feelings not merely of sympathy, but of empathy as well, must come into play. We have to understand that business owners and their employees are justified in expressing the view that supports the salutary—-as opposed to the mercenary variant—-essentiality of money.

It is an anticipated narrative to be sure, one that is in some respects irreconcilable with the prerequisites of public health concerns. Indeed, a basic relevant logic is active here: how can anyone earn a living if they are sick? 

The health/money debate should not be compared to the chicken-versus-the egg question which is inconclusive in nature. It hardly seems an ambiguous proposition that health should be given a higher priority than money. Having accepted this to be the case then, what is to be done regarding those who are without an income due to the virus? 

Since we are inclined to assume that health is everything and that we cannot abandon the hardest hit, it goes without saying that the economic victims of the Coronavirus should be helped financially by the US government as they struggle to get by through no fault of their own. That’s what governments are there for—-to assist their citizens especially in times of trouble. To put it another way, federal assistance would prevent having to make the painful choice between health and money. 

Such sentiment is ostensibly consensual among the legislators of the US federal government. Yet it is the Republican party and its senate representatives who are attempting to water down any financial aid to individuals hurting from the pandemic. An indicator of the GOP’s contempt for those being hammered by the economic effects of the Coronavirus is the party’s reluctance to pass aid legislation for pandemic relief. After approving an initial stimulus worth some $2 trillion the Republicans are now having cold feet about a second package. 

The GOP’s rationale goes this way: providing more free stimulus money will disincentivize laid-off workers from wanting to go back to work and turn them into “dependent animal creature(s)” as Republican right-wing icon Barry Goldwater once called social welfare beneficiaries.

This devastatingly misguided position forces people into that agonizing health/money quandary. The pandemic’s economic casualties cannot survive without federal government stimulus money, The Republicans’ sanctimonious parsimony is a form of cruelty that would have an extremely negative long-term impact on the American economy and society. So how is holding back financial aid going to help matters?

As Republican lawmakers continue to stand hypocritically on their high altar of “fiscal” and “personal” responsibility, Americans remain at great risk financially and physically in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Having to potentially and impossibly choose between health and livelihood is a sad consequence that lends further substance to the gross callousness and speciousness of the GOP.