I think there’s some merit to this idea, though it’s more a matter of seizing an existing opportunity.

I’m starting to get the idea that some governments (okay, just about all of them) are instrumentalizing Coronavirus (however dangerous it is) to reinforce and strengthen austerity. This isn’t the end of austerity but its final victory as most societies are ruthlessly third-worlded.

The plutes will never fail to take the opportunity to hoover up more wealth if they can. In the US, Fed “stimulus” combined with de facto austerity for states and municipalities will mean that more and more of the nation is owned by the super-wealthy. This wasn’t a necessary outcome but it’s the one that occurred and is occurring. I don’t see anything standing in the way of this trend; in fact, I expect it to worsen as we’re only in the first year of the two- to four-year long Pandemic Depression.

There is not likely to be a New New Deal.

So: bad times ahead, most likely.