Rewriting of “On Capitalism” during Coronavirus Lockdown

Karl Marx believed that the working class has antagonism toward the capitalist and will come together to overthrow the capitalist, thus showing that capitalism sows seeds of its own destruction. Now, the working class has now long been brainwashed by the capitalist society and, rather than band together to overthrow the capitalist, is helping the capitalist to prosper. This is nowhere better shown than the recent coronavirus lockdown.

Most workers are now given the right to work from home, others are just staying home with money guaranteed by the government itself or the government-backed or financed employers. For the former, they initially enjoy the freedom of working from home and having unlimited coffee breaks; they reclaim their long lost freedom and can undercut their capitalist employer in any way they like. And yet such sort of honeymoon does not last long — not that it is brought to an end early by the employer, but that the workers cannot cope with the freedom. Instead, they start to enjoy work and not only do they work 8 hours but 24 hours a day, even in their sleep. Family distress or routines are now replaced by the higher purpose of working or the higher enjoyment of working in front of the computer screen. That dialogue with the machine is much better than with human beings, sometime, it feels even better than having sex, or unlimited sex with one’s partners. Workers are sending out a strong message, a message loud and clear, that they love capitalists which created the alternative way of killing time and killing routines and evading boredom. Otherwise, without capitalists, life would be more meaningless with bare freedom and not much fun. Freedom as such is killing workers, as they are so brainwashed that, without fake news or without working for capitalists, their lives would come to none. Coronavirus reveals the power of brainwashing and the power of fake news media controlled by the capitalists.

What about those who do not have to work but are paid anyway by the government? There are all sorts of people with all sorts of circumstances, so diverse that it is impossible to say anything without being specific. Karl Marx did not include this, it is better to leave it out here.

Coronavirus teaches that it is unlikely that capitalism shall be overthrown by the workers; rather, the workers shall propagate it. Karl Marx would now have to sit down and rewrite his work, On Capitalism.