In the last half century, the advanced capitalist world has witnessed the juxtaposition of neoliberal immiseration with working-class political quiescence. Increasing exploitation and the destruction of the social safety net have not, by and large, produced the kinds of explosive class struggles that were familiar in the first half of the twentieth century.

In attempting to explain this, many theorists have turned to culture. Exploitation, they argue, will only produce struggle if workers possess a cultural framework pointing in that direction. It is equally possible, however, for workers to be absorbed into capitalist culture in various ways, leading them to consent to their own exploitation.

Vivek Chibber’s new book, The Class Matrix, examines this strain of thought, and finds it wanting. While acknowledging the important contributions theorists of the cultural turn have made, and recognizing how Marxist thought requires revision to meet their challenge, he argues that socialists must reject the notion that workers fail to fight back because something is wrong with their ideas.