But for it to be a pretext or pretense for the restrictions, the powerful would have to benefit in some way from the rest of the folks abiding by those restrictions. I don't think the world got more enjoyable for the rich just because the rest of us were hunkering down. They might have not played by the same rules, but the didn't get an outsized benefit - only less encumbered.
The wealthy and powerful have read their Marx, and understand that for them to maintain their station requires that the vast majority of humanity be pressed into ever-worsening material conditions. What better way to get everyone to accept a lower standard of living, worse education for their children, and amped up surveillance and restrictions on their movements, than to sell it as a pandemic response that's all "for their own good"? The part where they forced huge swaths of small/medium sized firms out of business and consolidated their market share for huge corporations was just a bonus.
Nobody but Marxists read him and take him seriously. Their theory of mind are all universally godawful in that they expect everyone richer than them to think like a cross between a mustache twirling villain using their twisted and stunted vocabularies.
