Richard D. Wolff

I think you make a good point George Kallas, in returning to Class Based Politics. It is unfortunate, but the murky ethers of oppression and struggle connected with a hue that has traditionally embodied such, does not allow us to see past the present issues related to identity and look at the critical element of class and economics that give birth and allow refuge to the aforementioned issues of identity (Race/Gender). No excuses, I’m just making the point that while the majority all suffer from the same issues of social division due to class and economic stratification we miss the forest for the trees fighting against the social systems set in place to maintain the order of Social/Class/Economic stratification. Therefore, your point is valid and does not fall on deaf ears.

How Class Works: Class based Analysis 101 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGOA2WedIQo

The Return of Class-Based Political Economic Analyses:

We need to bring back class-based political economic analyses to create sane policies that effectively mobilize people to challenge Corporate Capitalist elites and their failing institutions.

In a recent Nature article, something caught my eye.

“Academia must resist political confirmation bias: It is crucial to fight discrimination in all its forms, but it is unhelpful to exclude conservative voices from debate. 29 November 2016

http://www.nature.com/news/academia-must-resist-political-confirmation-bias-1.21057?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20161201&spMailingID=52887839&spUserID=MjM2MDIwOTI1ODAxS0&spJobID=1048432263&spReportId=MTA0ODQzMjI2MwS2

Although the author’s article argues for more inclusiveness of conservatives and evangelicals in science which have been marginalized by “identity politics.” I agree in science and academia no one should be censored and all voices allowed in the debate.

But what really caught my eye in this article was this very interesting passage:

“In short, he asserted that many progressives live in bubbles; that they are educationally programmed to be attuned to diversity issues, yet have “shockingly little to say” about political and democratic fundamentals such as class, economics, war and policy issues affecting the common good. Of direct relevance to the US election, he argued that the excessive focus on identity politics by urban and academic elites has left many white, religious and rural groups feeling alienated, threatened and ignored in an unwelcoming environment where the issues that matter to them are given little or no attention.”

It’s that “…“shockingly little to say” about political and democratic fundamentals such as class, economics,……” section I found most significant and for me a tacit verification of what radical and Marxian scholars have been arguing all along, race, gender and ethnicity problems of discrimination are critical to understanding social divisions, there should be no censorship of any critical voice in academia or elsewhere, all voices should be heard and debated,

But without a clear eyed, thoroughgoing CLASS-BASED ANALYSIS of social economic relationships or organization of societies that covers ALL groups whether conservatives, evangelical blue collar workers, progressives, gendered, racial or whatever, and without an incisive zeroing on how political power and economic power relationships govern and affect all of us who labor together yet ‘identify separately,’ the political fixation on “the excessive focus on identity politics” will create more political confusion, misunderstanding and anger than a rational critical analysis that radical and Marxian political economists and scholars have been urging for decades.

To paraphrase the classical obvious:

“Workers of the World Unite, You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Chains and a World To Gain…Before It Burns Up.”

Given this, maybe now in 2016, I believe, will spell the death not only of the silly ‘culture wars’ but of its vacuous “Identify Politics” that has marginalized the real class-based ‘bread ’n butter’ politics and policies of who controls the production of social wealth of the nation and world.

As the old saying goes, “Money clarifies the Mind and Relationships.”

It’s time for a Return to Class-Based Political Economic Analyses.

Welcome home to the Real World of Capital!

Some thoughts to chew on.

Video and audio glitches at 4:30