Mehring Books is pleased to feature this week Hurricane Katrina: Social Consequences and Political Lessons. This pamphlet contains a collection of articles posted on the World Socialist Web Site assessing the social and political significance of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina along the US Gulf Coast in 2005.

This pamphlet provides important insights into today’s ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The parallels between the two events are striking. In 2005, the Bush administration refused to take elementary steps to safeguard lives, homes and essential infrastructure. Then, after the hurricane struck, millions watched in disbelief as desperate residents begged for help.

Katrina exposed the enormous decline of American capitalism. In the name of “free market principles,” successive US administrations had dismantled the social safety net and allowed basic infrastructure to deteriorate, while unleashing military violence across the globe.

Engineers had warned for decades that a major storm could breach New Orleans’ levees, yet no serious preparations were made.

As the WSWS wrote: “What was revealed in a concentrated form was the immense social cost of the manic pursuit of individual wealth and corporate profit, to which every institution of society has been subordinated. The chilling reality—burned into mass consciousness by images of abandoned victims, rotting corpses, and survivors left to chant ‘We need help’ amidst devastation and squalor—was inescapable: as far as the American ruling elite is concerned, the lives of the broad masses of people count for nothing.”

The very same processes are at work today in the BP oil disaster.

To order your copy of Hurricane Katrina: Social Consequences ad Political Lessons click here.

Price: $4.95 plus shipping

Pages: 55

Publisher: Mehring Books

Year: 2005