The End of Class Politics

With economic inequality worsening across the globe, one might have expected the old left to make a comeback. It hasn’t. And it probably won’t.

This is part 1 in a series where I’ll be exploring various explanations behind the decline of “class politics.” I’m working on a longer review essay on this, so I thought this space would be ideal for testing out some ideas and sharing first drafts with paying subscribers. With that in mind, please do leave a comment, criticism, or question. I will respond to each of them. Over time, with your help, I want make this Substack an alternative to Twitter for good-faith engagement with a smaller community of readers who might diverge (radically) on premises and policy preferences but who share a genuine desire to explore the nature of those disagreements.

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Despite growing economic inequality across the globe, economic divides have grown less salient rather than more. In the place of class, there is one thing: culture war. As far as wars go, these types of wars feel “existential.” Whether they actually are is another matter, but insofar as large numbers of people perceive them as such, they become so.