Interesting remarks which allow some insight into the nature of the governments’ decision

 

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 6 December 2021, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

The weekend edition of the Wiener Zeitung published an interesting interview with a government adviser about the issue of compulsory vaccination. [1] The Wiener Zeitung is owned by the Austrian state and serves as a kind of semi-official organ of the ruling class. The person interviewed is Barbara Prainsack. She is a university professor in Vienna and a member of various institutions including the Rockefeller Foundation. [2] As a member of the "Austrian Corona Panels" as well as of the “Bioethikkommission” – an official advisory institution of the Austrian government [3] – she is close to the decision makers in the official pandemic policy.

 

Of course, Prof. Prainsack is not a big decision-maker – as an adviser she is rather a servant of the ruling class. But given her role, she is, without doubt, someone with close insights into the inner circles of power when it comes to the COVID Counterrevolution.

 

It is hardly surprising that Ms. Prainsack fully supports the general line of the pandemic policy. She even warns against making any concessions to militant opponents of vaccination as this would “constitute a problematic precedent because this would mean that we accept violence as a legitimate measure.”

 

However, it is exactly because of her support for the official COVID policy and because of her role as a government adviser which makes her critical stance on the issue of compulsory vaccination interesting. Let us first reproduce the relevant parts of the interview.

 

Asked about her views on compulsory vaccination she says: “Many are concluding from this that we need mandatory vaccination. I understand why they think this way, but I do not share this view.” Later she elaborates:

 

“Question: The political decision-makers have always excluded a mandatory vaccination against Covid. Now, they are breaking this promise. Can this not be another factor which makes people turning away from official politics?

 

Answer: Of course. There should have been never such a promise because during a pandemic one never knows how things are developing. But maybe this has happened because a few months ago one thought that a mandatory vaccination is so extreme that this will never happen.

 

Question: How does the scientific community view this issue which, at the beginning, was opposed to mandatory vaccination in its large majority?

 

Answer: Some have changed their opinion. But I would say that many scientists who deal with this issue from a medical and a social-science point of view still consider a mandatory vaccination as not optimal. However, the political decision-makers have decided this way and now the task is to apply mandatory vaccination in a way that it as effective as possible and as little invasive as possible.”

 

 

 

“Trust the Science” – the real meaning of this phrase

 

 

 

There are several interesting statements in this interview with Prof. Prainsack. First, it is worth pointing out that the last sentence in the quote above reflects the true character of such academics as servants of the ruling class. Despite her disagreement with the decision of the government, she expresses her readiness to help it as much as possible implementing it.

 

This reflects the role of such bourgeois intellectuals who do not represent an “independent” point of view. Their role is to advise the ruling class and to help them implement their decisions irrespective if they agree with it no not. Sure, sometimes when disagreements become too big – or the career opportunities and the payments too small – they might resign from their position. But as long as such people play a role in the network of consulting, defending, propagandizing, lending “scientific” credence to the government decisions, these intellectuals are well-paid mercenaries of the ruling class.

 

This should serve as a lesson to all those liberal and “left-wing” muddle-heads who say that one should “trust the science”! In reality, what they mean with this silly phrase is that people should trust those scientists whom the ruling class presents as authorities and who legitimize “scientifically” the decisions of the government.

 

Instead, socialists say that science is a crucial instrument of humanity in order to advance. But as long as we live in class society based on exploitation and oppression one should distrust those scientists who are promoted by the ruling class for the purpose of defending and lending “scientific” credentials for their reactionary policy.

 

 

 

Even they have to admit that mandatory vaccination is an “extreme measure”!

 

 

 

The second interesting aspect in this interview is the admission of the government adviser that mandatory vaccination is an “extreme measure”. We all remember very well that people that warned in the past against the introduction of this measure were denounced by the bourgeois “public opinion” as “conspiracy theorists” who are spreading “fake news”. This was only a few months ago! Today, the government, the bourgeois media and numerous commentators present compulsory vaccination as a “self-evident” measure.

 

Again, this is another confirmation of our thesis that one should never trust the capitalist governments, their media, and their scientists. They might say this now and do the complete opposite only a few months later.

 

One might say that they all did not foresee at that time the future development of the pandemic. But, first, if that would be true it would mean that they are all together a bunch of idiots who are incapable to understand the nature of the pandemic! In such a case, it would be even more urgent, first, not to trust and, second, not to leave such people in power for a single minute!

 

However, it is of course nonsense to imagine that all leading figures in government, media and scientific institutions are imbeciles. There can be no doubt that at least a significant proportion of them thought about imposing compulsory vaccination already some time ago. Only a naïve fool could imagine that an “extreme measure” comes to mind of the government (and is defended by more or less all influential figures in the media and even by most opposition parties) “suddenly”, from moment to the other.

 

In fact, the RCIT and other opponents of the COVID Counterrevolution have warned since some time that the ruling class is determined to impose compulsory vaccination. [4] We did so because we knew that the logic of the authoritarian Corona policy – we have called this chauvinist state bonapartism – is aimed at dramatically expanding power of the repressive state apparatus as well as at increasing the profits of Big Pharma and other corporations.

 

Finally, even if one would accept that logic of the official propaganda about the COVID pandemic as a worse danger for the society than similar events before, even than there is no justification for the introduction of mandatory vaccination. If we look at the number of people who have died in the last few months because of the virus we see that, according to official figures, the number of corona death in Western Europe has been below that of last year at that time. [5]

 

 

 

Not motivated by medical considerations

 

 

 

The third and most interesting aspect of the interview with Prof. Prainsack is her statement that “many scientists” view mandatory vaccination “as not optimal”. If we translate this diplomatic formulation in proper language of ordinary people, this mean that even a government adviser has to admit that most scientists see not justification for the introduction of such an “extreme measure”.

 

This statement is even more relevant because it is obvious that she has those scientists in mind who work within the bourgeois institutions without causing problems to the ruling class – in contrast to those “outsiders” which oppose the dominant narrative and who have rightly questioned the policy of Lockdown and mass vaccination. [6]

 

In other words, what the government adviser suggests is that the imposition of mandatory vaccination was not driven by pressure from their science advisors. Hence, it was a decision which originated not among the science advisors, but which came directly from the ruling political circles. This in turn means that the decision to impose compulsory vaccination is not driven by medical but by political and economic considerations.

 

Of course, there are local factors which can push such decisions in one case or another. The fact that the Austrian government was the first in the world to impose such compulsory vaccination has certainly been influenced by the fact that this conservative-led government is currently facing a severe crisis and that it hopes to manage a flight forward with such a draconic measure.

 

But the very fact that the new German government adopted the same measure and that other governments also plan to follow this road shows that there are more fundamental factors in play which are inherent to the general course of the COVID Counterrevolution.

 

 

 

What does the ruling class gain from compulsory vaccination?

 

 

 

The RCIT and other progressive forces have explained since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020 that the governments’ policy since has not been driven by health concerns but rather by political and economic interests. Its main goal has been the expansion of the police and surveillance state as well as the increase of the profits of capitalist monopolies. As this is not the place to repeat the RCIT’s analysis of this historic attack on social and democratic rights and refer readers to our extensive literature on this issue. [7]

 

In this article, we limit ourselves to point out the most obvious advantages of compulsory vaccination for the ruling class. First, this measure would guarantee a huge market for the pharma corporations. As it is widely known, the pandemic has offered pharma corporations gigantic opportunities to increase their profits. [8] Compulsory vaccination which would include so-called boosters every few months (as these vaccinations are not very effective and lasting) would allow a guaranteed market of which the capitalists could have only dreamed until now.

 

Secondly, compulsory vaccination is a perfect pretext to expand the police and surveillance state. If vaccination is mandatory, the whole population needs to be controlled on a regular basis and, if necessary, sanctioned. This requires the introduction of the necessary technology everywhere – from the smart phone to the supermarket, from public transport to the pub around the corner. In short, this measure results in the creation of a gigantic market for Big Tech as well as the expansion of the personal for the state administration apparatus to manage all this.

 

Finally, the imposition of compulsory vaccination has also long-term consequences. It opens the road for a comprehensive control and surveillance of the health status of the whole population. If it makes sense to force all people to get vaccinated, why not force them to do other things (or to face sanctions)? If it is possible to control the health status of the population, why not control other things? As the necessary technology and centralization of data will be in place, this can easily be exploited for many other attacks on fundamental democratic rights. Only naïve fools and conscious manipulators in the service of the ruling class can deny these possibilities which show, once again, the thoroughly reactionary nature of the COVID Counterrevolution. [9]

 

We repeat our call to socialists and consistent democrats to join the RCIT in fighting against the COVID Counterrevolution!