Social Distancing and the Class Struggle

As a front-line worker in Kentucky, I have seen up close how the ruling class, its state, media, and culture have squeezed the collective throat of the working class during the coronavirus pandemic. The capitalist system hasn’t just failed to protect the working class from the coronavirus, it has systematically murdered the most vulnerable of us through negligence. We workers are creating record profits for the bosses at financial gunpoint, condemning us to toil during a deadly plague. Instead of medical-grade protective equipment and widely available preventative testing, the bourgeoisie flippantly recommends “social distancing” to shield employees from COVID-19. Wearing a mask, maintaining physical space, practicing good hygiene, and avoiding exposure are all common-sense personal initiatives—but “social distancing” translates differently between the classes.

In 1846, Marx explained in The German Ideology that “The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production.” As Marxists, we understand that concepts such as “democracy, “freedom,” and “property” cannot be separated from their class content.

The material conditions of the proletariat make implementing the bourgeois conception of social distancing nearly impossible. Our low wages, empty bank accounts, overdue rent, crowded apartments, lack of health insurance, and bare fridges compel us to risk our lives in ways unknown to the capitalist class. They criminally jeopardize our class well-being to accumulate capital; exploiting our labor power in a perilous time, only to issue a futile phrase as a remedy.

Effective social distancing is a privilege of the bourgeoisie because of their financial security, spatial comfort, and access to healthy living. Unlike the bourgeoisie, individual workers do not have the wealth, job security, or purchasing power to acquire a reserve of necessities to survive at home for weeks and months. Tens of millions of service industry workers, gig economy employees, warehouse pickers, and delivery drivers do not have the option to “work at home”—much less adequate provisions to “shelter in place” for months.

Most sustain prolonged exposure to COVID-19 against their will in these jobs, while the bosses safely profit from our labor. Any responsible, cautious efforts to organize in the workplace are cynically shut down by the bosses because of “social distancing.” The bourgeoisie wield this concept hypocritically and invoke the term at their convenience.

All the hygienic precautions in the world are nullified by the structurally deficient system we live under. The dictatorship of capital is painfully clear in our housing and urban layout. In addition to our places of employment, the dangers of coronavirus are rampant in the public sphere. We cannot afford to pay for food app deliveries and are financially hampered from restocking our cupboards sufficiently. This leads to close-quarter interactions at supermarkets, with mad rushes to the store on payday. We do our best to buy healthier, but our check is already going fast, so we settle for what we can afford. Exhausted mentally and physically, we arrive home in an overpopulated section of the city, in a minuscule apartment with too many roommates. After all, we also have to pay rent to a parasitic corporate landlord!

Under pandemic conditions, densely populated cities and leased dwellings are infinitely more vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus. As renters and economically precarious workers, we do not enjoy the physical space that exists in the suburbs. There is a physical-space inequality that has been exposed vividly by the coronavirus. The bourgeoisie has a monopoly on geographic immensity with wide tracts and large homes. As with all aspects of capitalism, class oppression is compounded by institutional racism, gender, and other forms of oppression.

True social distancing is also a privilege for the capitalist class because they have access to quality healthcare and a healthy diet. Everything is commodified under capitalism, but for struggling workers, perhaps the most reprehensible result is the commodification of our health. The ability to receive medical care correlates directly with our financial status. As the pandemic emerged, a stable, quality, universally available healthcare system could have mitigated hundreds of thousands of deaths through preventative measures and proper treatment for those infected. Under our current for-profit healthcare, we are subjected to the chaos of capitalism, with no rational plan to address crises as profound as this.

If a worker is lucky enough to have a baseline health insurance policy—often with a $5,000 deductible—they have difficulty attending doctor’s visits because of the two jobs they are juggling. And if they have kids to care for as well, forget about it!

Even the food the rich have access to is generally healthier and more salutary than the groceries we can afford. A nutritious, nourishing diet is nearly unattainable for the broke, overworked rank and file because of high-priced commodities and insufficient time to prepare ingredients. Malnutrition, according to the WHO, directly contributes to increased communicability to the coronavirus. Urban “food deserts,” a barrage of ads for junk food, and the ubiquity of fast-food restaurants maximize the lethality of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Under socialist planning, the reduction of work hours and accessibility to nutrient-rich fare will end hunger forever and promote the well-being of all.

The pandemic has exacerbated the contradictions of capitalism, exposing this mode of production as an antiquated scam. To defend humanity against this and future pandemics, we need to fight for socialist revolution, not merely accept the bourgeois version of “social distancing.” The bosses intend to atomize workers into alienated individuals with little agency against the coronavirus. This is evidence of the bourgeoisie’s intense fear of the power of our class. They know that if we realize our collective might, it is the end of their world.