Subjects Archives: Class

‘The essential difference between the various economic forms of society, between, for instance, a society based on slave-labour, and one based on wage-labour, lies only in the mode in which this surplus-labour is in each case extracted from the actual producer, the labourer.’ —Marx

Marxists have long understood that the workplace is the primary strategic site of class struggle, and that class struggle is essential for cohering a radicalized working-class majority with the capacity and will to overthrow capitalism in favor of socialism. At the same time, Marxists recognize our moral responsibility to oppose—and the strategic necessity to fight—all forms of exploitation and oppression.

The argument I’ve been making during this series on utopia is that the utopian moment of the Marxian alternative to mainstream economics is critique.*

Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal is no class warrior.

To this day, “NUMSA has not deviated from its perspective of Marxism, Leninism and its goal of building a socialist South Africa,” says Karl Cloete

In this episode, we speak with Fadhel Kaboub (@fadhelkaboub), associate professor of economics at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. Fadhel outlines a new critical approach to postcolonial political economy, arguing that re-gaining financial sovereignty is a crucial next step for postcolonial nations hoping to achieve social, economic, and environmental justice.

As we head into the 2018 elections feminists of all sorts must make sure that there is a revolutionary commitment to restructure the massive system of oppression maintained by sexual violence. Becoming a part of the existing structure is not enough—nor is simply being female.

Joe Hayns talks to Kim Moody about how global capital is reshaping the terrain of class struggle-and how workers are adapting.

The constant threat of detention and deportation discourages the undocumented employee from demanding or organizing for more pay and better working conditions—and this status is preferred by big corporations and the superrich, who profit handsomely as a result.

In this episode, Money on the Left cohost Maxximilian Seijo (@maxseijo) expands upon the argument made in his video essay, “Inglorious Basterds: Nazi Desire Fully Employed,” which takes a neochartalist lens to Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds (2008).

Liberals like to talk about all kinds of social ills and identity-laden tensions—but not class struggle. That’s their persistent and enduring blindspot.

In our inaugural episode, we consider the recent resurgence of full employment politics in the United States from both a political and historical perspective with historian David Stein (@davidpstein).

The 2016 presidential exit polls “substantially underestimated the number of Democratic white working-class voters…and overestimated the white college-educated Democratic electorate,” New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall (3/29/18) writes.

The term “white working class” captured much of the media analysis which sought to explain Trump’s meteoric rise and subsequent victory to the highest office in the United States. The obsession with polling and voting trends based in demographics is certainly nothing new.

Even in a comic-book movie, black American men are relegated to the lowest rung of political regard. So low that the sole white leading character in the movie, the CIA operative Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), gets to be a hero who helps save Wakanda.

Thousands of people will gather next week in Davos. Their combined wealth will reach several hundred billion dollars, perhaps even close to a trillion. Never in world history will be the amount of wealth per square foot so high. And this year, for the sixth or seventh consecutive time, what would be one of the principal topics addressed by these captains of industry, billionaires, employers of thousands of people across the four corners of the globe: inequality…

Since the Great Recession there has been much debate on the nature of capitalism and the crisis of neoliberalism. Often this has resulted in theories which emphasise finance capital, precarious employment, and play to a generally left Keynesian politics, such as that being pursued within the Labour Party currently.

A study last year by London University academics highlighted the shocking disparities in pay between individuals from different backgrounds. Most other papers treated this as minor news or ignored it altogether. The Morning Star rightly put it on the front page under the headline Working Class? That’ll be Six Grand off your Salary (and it was the only paper to mention TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady’s call for worker representation on company boards).

No doubt about it, the recently passed tax bill is terrible for working people.  But as Lance Taylor states in a blog post titled “Why Stopping Tax ‘Reform’ Won’t Stop Inequality”: “Inequality isn’t driven by taxes—its driven by the power of capital in relation to workers.”  Said differently we need to concentrate our efforts on shifting the balance of class power.  And that means, among other things, putting more of our energy into workplace organizing and revitalizing the trade union movement.

Whoever speaks of “crisis” today risks being dismissed as a bloviator, given the term’s banalization through endless loose talk. But there is a precise sense in which we do face a crisis today. If we characterize it precisely and identify its distinctive dynamics, we can better determine what is needed to resolve it.