The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

The U.S. Has Another Huge Gift for Pfizer and Moderna in the Works

Nov 22, 2021

The Biden administration announced that it’s planning to “invest in expanding U.S. manufacturing capabilities of mRNA-based coronavirus vaccines.”

Translation: the federal government will hand out to two U.S.-based companies that produce mRNA vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, billions of dollars—on top of the billions of dollars it has already given them.

Moderna is expected to close 2021 with a profit of 14 billion dollars, a 70% profit margin on its projected revenue of 20 billion dollars from its coronavirus vaccine, the company’s sole product. Pfizer, a global pharmaceutical giant that has many other products, made about 58 billion dollars in sales and about 19 billion dollars in profit in the first nine months of 2021, nearly half of it from vaccines, including the coronavirus vaccine.

So why can’t Pfizer and Moderna use their fabulous profits to build new plants and expand their own manufacturing capacity?

Because we live under capitalism, a system whose purpose is to increase profit, and where government officials act as reverse Robin Hoods, handing taxpayer money to the biggest capitalists.