Discussions of inequality in contemporary societies often revolve around a familiar distinction between injustices rooted in status and those rooted in class. On one side stand struggles for recognition, aimed at securing respect and social standing for particular groups. On the other stand struggles over material distribution, aimed at transforming the economic structures that produce class divisions in the first place. The contrast is often framed as a strategic one. Recognition politics is seen as more flexible, more achievable, and less threatening to the system. Class politics, by contrast, appears rigid, confrontational, and rarely victorious.

This perception is widespread. In the Swedish trade union report Right-Wing Populism and Equality — An Essay, Anders Nilsson and Örjan Nyström describe contemporary inequality in terms of vertical and horizontal dimensions. Vertical inequality concerns class and economic distribution. Horizontal inequality concerns status, identity, and recognition. According to their account, vertical inequality has deepened in recent decades, while important gains, despite backlash, have been made along the horizontal axis. Women have entered elite professions, LGBTQ rights have expanded, and anti-racist norms have gained ground. These advances, however partial, have unfolded alongside rising economic polarization.

The result, they argue, is a volatile political landscape. Progressive neoliberalism has opened the doors of power to selected individuals from historically excluded groups, allowing them to “break the glass ceiling,” while leaving the underlying economic order intact. For those whose material conditions continue to deteriorate, this produces resentment. Feminism, anti-racism, and LGBTQ politics come to be seen not as emancipatory movements but as vehicles for the upward mobility of a few. The perception takes hold that women, queer people, and racialized minorities are climbing the social ladder together, while others are left behind.