On Aug. 1, a heavily traveled interstate bridge in Minneapolis, Minn., crumbled, sending rush hour traffic plunging into the Mississippi River. At least 11 people died, two are missing and dozens were wounded.
Two weeks before that, an 83-year-old steam pipe exploded onto the streets of Manhattan, showering the area with
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In the United States, the loss of life and livelihood brought by crisis always seems to result in the usual spate of media attention, blue ribbon probes, and hand-wringing by politicians who pledge to do whatever it takes to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.
After a short time, it always seems to fade from the spotlight, leaving very little changed.
Recently, much attention has been paid to a report released by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2005. The document is a report card on the country’s infrastructure. The cumulative grade is a dismal D. This is down from the D+ it received four years ago.
Another festering problem highlighted in the ASCE report is unsafe dams. The number is up 33 percent since 1998. At least 3,500 of these dams are among the country’s largest. Further, the ASCE cannot be certain how many dams are unsafe since many states cannot afford even the most cursory inspections.
Water is another problem. According to the report, nearly $1 trillion is needed for critical drinking water and wastewater projects over the next 20 years. Drinking water, sewage treatment, and navigable waterways barely avoided a failing grade, coming in at D-.
The highest grade of C+ was for landfills and solid waste recycling. Meanwhile, the report found that power lines are overstressed; schools, public parks and beaches are deteriorating.
Failure of capitalism
So far, no one knows precisely why the Minneapolis bridge fell apart. Theories include undetected cracks; metal fatigue; vibrations from a roadway resurfacing project; and soil erosion around the underwater supports.
It is certain that the structure’s design was one factor. Approximately 77,000 U.S. bridges share the “structurally deficient” rating assigned by the ASCE to the Minnesota bridge; some 756 of them are constructed in a similar way.
Capitalism’s long history of compromise in the integrity of design and construction has left us with an infrastructure in dire need of careful inspection and monitoring. But will this happen? What about the quality of the inspections?
The Minneapolis bridge had been inspected on an annual basis. The pipe that burst in Manhattan had also been inspected and declared sound. Even the levees in New Orleans before Katrina had been regularly inspected by the Army Corp of Engineers.
The truth is that, despite being available, most states cannot afford high-tech sensing and retrofitting technology. Meanwhile, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, most inspections will be completed by a “guy [with] a little hammer in his hand, [who] knocks down a few flakes of rust and a few flakes of paint and tries to make sense of it while fearing for his life in a dangerous situation.”
The tools these inspectors use to perform this important task are often no more than a flashlight, a hammer, a ruler and a camera.
Maintaining infrastructure takes money—money that the capitalists claim not to have when it comes to things that people need.
While socialist Cuba is literally planning how it can improve quality of life for people there—building schools, housing, and healthcare facilities that offer services free of charge—it is not even ensured that people in the United States will be able to get to work alive.
In Cuba, a decent job is a right. On the other hand, capitalism utilizes what Marx called “the reserve army of
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In the United States, millions of working-class people are unemployed. Under a socialist, planned economy, all people could have good jobs completing important work on the infrastructure.
Instead, capitalism offers war against workers abroad and at home.
In an effort to secure a future that will guarantee the growth of their vast wealth, the ruling class employs politicians like George Bush as front men and women.
Bush, in his speeches about the Minnesota bridge collapse, has feigned empathy with the victims and their families. He claims he is working to secure a future for “our children.”
But this is a lie.
Neither Bush nor his ruling-class allies care if working-class children die in a bridge tragedy, get hit by a hurricane, or get sprayed by an old pipe underneath city streets. They are working to secure a future for the children of the rich, period.
Democrats have also made hollow speeches in the aftermath of the bridge collapse. Most have postured for perceived political gain. Democratic Senate leader Henry Reid correctly pointed out that U.S. domestic programs and infrastructure are being short-changed because of the billions spent on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But Reid is an agent of the same capitalist ruling class. His analysis is convenient lip service in the lead up to the 2008 elections. And it is only part of the story.
This infrastructure has been ignored for decades, through several wars and imperialist aggressions, by Democrats and Republicans alike.
It was capitalism that brought down that bridge in Minneapolis. And it is the efforts that we make toward building a new society that will ultimately bring down capitalism.
Just like the bridges it builds, the capitalist system is fundamentally flawed.
