The WSWS has pushed a theoretically false and dangerous theory upon the revolutionary movement and the advanced workers. They have argued without compunction that the drive to return workers into unsafe conditions did not constitute a political assault against the workers but simple economics. If the workers did not work, the capitalists cannot extract surplus value, and the profit rate decreases. Lost time, lost money.

A study of Marx’s pamphlet Value, Price, and Profit or of his book Capital, would have informed them that socialists do not share these views with the capitalists. The capitalist extracts surplus value not through the work of the laborer but through the purchase of the labor at below its true value. The less they pay the workers, the more profit they extract. This has nothing to do with actually increasing production.

If workers produce $100 of goods for the capitalist, while charging $70, the capitalist takes $30 of profit. If this is 1 ton of coal or 1/10 of a ton of coal, we see no difference, since the lower supply of coal priced higher on the market will produce the same rate of profit for the capitalist. This lower supply priced higher and producing the same profit represents “fetters” on the ” productive forces”, which makes capitalism an outmoded system.

In the event of a pandemic, the capitalist can increase his wealth by shutting down production. This means that a greater proportion of the capital will remain idle. This seems to hurt the capitalist, but by his position in society as a member of the ruling class, it hurts the worker even worse. This means that in the moment of exchange, when the relative value of labor and capital find expression, the capitalist can demand more for his capital while the worker must accept less for his labor. In that moment, during the signing of the contract or resumption of work at a given wage to price ratio, the great transfer of wealth from worker to capitalist finds expression. The worker takes on more debt, reduces consumption, and accepts crowded and substandard living conditions. The capitalist gains a greater share of the product, has his debts erased by the government, and can now afford to expand his businesses and all his personal affairs at the expense of the worker.

The idea that the capitalist must get the workers back to work in order to extract profit actually serves the capitalists by hiding the real power relations. The workers should see the return to work for what it is, political violence to break the political movement of the workers based in the workplace. The workers must defend against the violence of the ruling class while demanding justice against the agents of the capitalist state. The virus weapon must be seen within this context.

As Marx argued, only the workers’ joining forces and participating in industrial actions such as slowdowns, strikes, and sit-down strikes, as part of an economic struggle for an increasing share of the product of their labor can return them to the path towards socialism. This means not opposing a return to work because that would lead to production and profit for the capitalist. It means opposing a return to work because the wages relative to prices are too low considering the risks and costs to the workers involved in a return to work. A return to work could actually benefit the workers if we consider their safety and properly value the risk involved in working during a pandemic. This means doubling their wages as hazard pay, freezing evictions, erasing housing and student loan debt, and providing free medical care for all. These measures would end the pandemic as it would attack the real motive behind the spread of the pandemic, [the increasing costs of caring for the elderly, providing stable and safe housing for the younger generation of workers, and other social necessities, the production of which should not suffer in fetters as mere profit opportunities.]

A recognition of the virus as a violent assault on the political progress of the working class, its increasing class-consciousness and increasing militancy, is imperative in carrying forward the struggle against the capitalist state, its political agents, and the capitalist system of class division and institutionalized social warfare that it defends.