Stay Classy
Class is not the universal solvent that does away with all identity.
483 Search Results for: working class
Identity Politics Is a Poor Substitute for Socialism
In No Politics but Class Politics, Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed show how an identity politics that obscures class politics and ignores economic inequality only makes the many miseries around us worse.
The Republicans Have Been Trumped
The GOP establishment doesn't hate Trump because he's a bigot. They hate him because he doesn't promote the neoliberal agenda.
An Open Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Liberals Who Love Him
The reparations demand survives as a parlor debate — it cannot address the real needs and interests of black workers.
Is Democracy Doomed?
Research shows that the organized working class, and industrial workers in particular, have been the driving force for democracy around the world. The question is whether the erosion of the industrial working class will weaken our prospects for democratic politics.
How the UK Labour Party Lost the Working Class
More low-income voters backed the Tories than the Labour Party in the 2019 election for the first time ever. Labour’s decision to side with the establishment rather than the voters over Brexit pushed them into the Tories’ arms.
Eugene Debs: “Why We Have Outgrown the United States Constitution”
In a 1911 article, legendary socialist Eugene Debs excoriated the US Constitution as an “autocratic and reactionary document” written by aristocrats and “in every sense a denial of democracy.” To mark Presidents’ Day, we reprint the fiery essay here in full.
Class Dealignment Has Devastated the Italian Left
In Italy, blue-collar industrial workers are abandoning the Left. As in other countries, they don’t represent the entire working class, but their loss of support should still deeply trouble the Italian left.
Hardhats and Hippies: An Interview with Penny Lewis
In the popular imagination, opposition to the Vietnam War was driven largely by the privileged, while supposedly reactionary blue-collar workers supported the war effort. That memory is wrong.
Democrats Are Ditching Class, and It’s Costing Them Working-Class Voters
Neither mainstream American political party has a compelling message for working-class voters. As a result, voters are starting to vote in line with their cultural opinions, not their class interests. Unfortunately, that’s good news for the Right.
Burying White Workers
Liberal condescension towards white workers is code for a broader anti-working class agenda
Workers Are on the Frontline of a Second Wave of COVID-19
While public-health guidance tells citizens to work from home, for millions of low-wage workers, this has never been a realistic option. As Europe’s governments ease the lockdown, it’s working-class people who are on the firing line of a second wave of infections.
No Easy Solutions
A reply to Seth Ackerman
How the Ruling Class Became Vulgar
Old-money WASPs once ruled America with an air of clannish exclusivity. Then the economic crises of the 1970s upended their world, opening the corporate floodgates to new-money barbarians — and replacing elite social norms with wanton money lust.
The Two Paths of Democratic Socialism: Coalition and Confrontation
After Bernie Sanders, democratic socialists in America face a vital strategic dilemma. Do we go the Justice Democrats route of winning gains as the junior partner in a progressive coalition, or do we take a gamble on more independent class organization and struggle?
Class Rules Everything Around Me
The socialist emphasis on the centrality of class isn't about ignoring racial inequalities, but about crafting a politics capable of ending them.
The Politics of a Second Gilded Age
The mass inequality of America’s first Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we’re headed down the same path.
Yuppie Misandry
At the turn of the last century, Alexandra Kollontai identified the problem with elite feminism.
The State Organizes the Capitalist Class. The Working Class Will Have to Organize Itself.
To sustain capitalism, otherwise competitive businesses have to do something unnatural: cooperate with each other. The state plays a crucial role in fostering this class discipline. We, on the other hand, have to build our own power.
The Left Is Back (Sort Of)
But we’re nothing without our universal subject — the international working class.