Let’s talk about essential workers. But first, let’s take a look back. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how wages get assigned in the capitalist system. The short version? Capitalism assigns wages to people according to, roughly, the ‘social worth’ it assigns to them. Society makes certain judgments about the acceptable standard of living for certain people. Or, in Marxist terms, the accepted value of their labor power. By contrast, the value workers add has nothing to do with wages.
What’s that got to do with essential workers? Glad you asked.
