Response to this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/03/19/americans-must-relearn-sacrifice-time-coronavirus/

Joseph Stieb tells us that more than post-truth politics or lack of paid leave, our roadblock to an effective pandemic response is that Americans identify as consumers more than citizens. Stieb provides examples like Reagan’s “less is not enough” policy and our all-volunteer military to illustrate the extent to which Americans have not been asked to sacrifice involuntarily in recent history.

In the face of the global pandemic, Stieb argues, Americans need to relearn how to sacrifice. Commenter boudica responds: “You don’t seem to understand that at least half of us have not recovered from the crash of ‘07… People scrim [sic] and scrape to pay rent, grocery bills, utility bills, car payments and repairs and education..You are one of the well-off lecturing the rest of us who are struggling about “sacrificing.’” Harsh, but boudica has a point.

Consumerism is a contributing factor to the U.S.’s pandemic response, but Stieb needs to take into account another factor: Americans who have nothing to sacrifice because the system of capitalistic consumption itself has pushed them to the ragged edge of survival. Stieb is correct in the sense that the U.S. isn’t used to involuntary sacrifice; but it is the wealthiest Americans who are least used to it. Sure, we have an all-volunteer military, but the prohibitive cost of college makes the G.I. Bill the only realistic way for many low-income Americans to get an education. Bush encouraged Americans to revive the airlines after 9/11 by taking vacations.; that could only apply to consumers who had been on paid leave and had the pocket money to do so. Americans in poverty understand sacrifice. The responsibility of cultural reform falls to the wealthy.