We are in the moment of a great pandemic crisis, that pandemic being caused by viruses. There are two viruses causing a pandemic at this time. One you may know as COVID-19, the Coronavirus. The other virus isn’t as talked about as much, that virus is capitalism.

While white collar workers are told they can work from home, blue collar workers are forced to continue working and keep production going. Even in Crisis the Capitalist machine would rather suck the life out of its seemingly endless supply of labor, in the chance that profit can still be pumped out of the workforce. Faceless and humanless, the lack of compassion for the ill, the bourgeois will work its labor to the bone, risking their life. However, for most, the risk of losing their hourly wage is still too great in order to sacrifice skipping going to work. The workers must still sacrifice their life in the hopes that they will still be paid.

As a response the bourgeois government has attempted to ease the burden of the pandemic. First, by the Democratic party passing a sick leave bill for only 20 percent of the workforce. To now Universal Basic Income being implemented, a payment of 1,000 dollars to every person. However, UBI is just another way in which the Capitalist system attempts to warp itself and adapt to yet again another crisis. Low wages, meaning that workers, have less and less purchasing power, create sky rocketing profits for the owners, yet the owners can never fully purchase everything, exacerbating the crisis of overproduction. This has led to several crises for the bourgeois government to adopt minimal solutions. One introducing credit to be used as a purchasing power, to make up for the low wages, engulfing the victims of Capitalism to slowly trap themselves in a seemingly never ending build up of debt.

Since wages were stagnate, the major contradiction began to form in corporate debt. Ultra low interest rates have caused a mass amount of loans to be taken out for companies to take those loans and inflate their own stock prices. This as well has allowed for corporations to centralize capital into fewer hands, with acquisition and mergers used with these loans. At the end of 2019 about half of the world economy is made up of corporate debt.

As companies panic over not being able to pay this debt back due to having their profits suffered because of this pandemic, a price war for oil between Saudi Arabia and Russia has also triggered many negative effects. As OPEC countries and Russia gathered to plan production cuts due to coronavirus. Russia decided to break a three year pact that manages global oil supply, refusing to sign on to Saudi Arabia’s cuts. This allowed for more production of oil and slowly this overproduction began shooting the price of oil down. As the price of oil drops, stocks begin to crash hard.

As of 3-20-2020, the stock market has lost 35% of its value in the past 3 weeks. In comparison the Great Depression was triggered by a 24.8% drop. The workers will feel all of the burden of this crash. Much as they did during the Great Depression, and Great Recession. The government will bail out the companies that fail, that recklessly inflated their own stocks with fictitious capital. Workers will get laid off, retirement savings will be erased, and average working people who spent their whole lives just trying to get by, will lose everything. Those who get sick will not be able to afford the private health insurance bills, and won’t be able to see a doctor, causing the coronavirus to keep spreading and spreading.

Yet, in this deep dark time of grave uncertainty, the working class must not devolve itself into petty individualism, instead it must unite itself and come together in solidarity. Those who are still able to work will begin to see their conditions worsen, as the corporate bourgeois government begins to batten down the hatches for the looming uncertain future. Workers must organize and fight back, and they must stand together, beyond borders, with the working class of all countries. As the coronavirus itself isn’t limited by borders, neither should the working class. Workers must call for medical leave, and call for a pause to work during this pandemic. Through this very united class front, the international working class can change society, and prioritize the human needs in this moment of crisis and any looming future crisis. The class union, in Coordination with the International Communist Party, can smash the demands of the market, for continuing to force workers to labor their lives away during a pandemic, just for a small chance of below liveable scraps, without any compassion for the families or lives that are torn apart and destroyed, all in the name of the never ending, continuous and pathological pursuit of profit.

Where the ruling class only concern in this moment is their own relief to the arrogance and stupidity of their reckless spur of the moment lining of their own pockets, pinn headed imperialism, and concern only for profit, the working class must use the cure, Communism, for this virus and eradicate the long term sickness of Capitalism.