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Sorry not to reply earlier but something seems to have gone wrong with the notifications on our site as all the editors are supposed to get instant messages of any post. I see that there are posts on the site that predate yours which we were not aware of! Thanks to Shug for emailing to draw our attention to your exchange. I have forwarded your question to other comrades but I think you have already highlighted one factor which makes any response currently a little speculative (if I can use that term in a discussion like this!) is that we do not yet know how long this crisis will last and time will be a factor in determining its impact.

What the coronavirus crisis shares with an generalised imperialist war situation is a) it affects the whole planet and b) the nature of the crisis allows states to make changes to the functioning of private property WITHOUT this calling into question the whole system based on private property itself.

Coincidentally Mario Draghi, former President of the ECB who famously responded to 2007-8 with the words "we'll do what it takes" (and then got away with doing a lot less than his counterparts in the USA) has written that (European) governments have to intervene now, not just to compensate for lost wages, but to prevent massive layoffs (of the kind that are already happening but much more viciously in the US). He basically is saying that all private debt that is incurred should be backed by the state and transferred to state indebtedness (sinee he expects interest rates to go up and therefore to turn all those zombie companies (estimated at 16% of the total in the US) into dead companies. He seems to be arguing that they can just print the money and then worry about how they dispose of the debt afterwards (he doesn't openly say it but writing it off seems to be an option). All this is designed to ensure that capital investment picks up once again as soon as the emergency is over.

There is an obvious problem here in that it would basically preserve the continuing crisis as it was when they began the year. Devaluation would be minimised and he would be relying on the pick up in economic activity to provide the boost to the economy so desperately lacking since 2008. In other words he is saying that rather than let the crisis be the "cure" for the overaccumulation and ergo the low rate of profit the stagnation would go on. One of the boosts to investment after WW2 was the absolute physical destruction of value. Draghi's "solution" would not come close to doing this and at best we would have "moral depreciation" so that stagnation would go on. But then Draghi's idea is only his suggestion and it may not be taken up in the way that he advocates. The aficionados of Keynesianism and Modern Monetary Theory will though all be advocating similar state action ("universal basis income" is already back from the dead).

What might be the most interesting consequence is the cureent recognition by so many workers across the globe that they count for nothing when it comes to making profits. Their struggles to shut workplaces may be the beginning of something wider. Who knows? We have long been in uncharted territory and certainly need to keep our eyes open and brains alert to what is happening. So thanks for your question to which this is a first, and no doubt unsatisfactory, response. I imagine others can add more.