Karl Marx Makes a Comeback
Working-Class Perspectives
Why the white worker theme is harmful. It’s a mistake to racialize an economy that harms the entire working class. What has happened to more whites now is that the market has moved past them as well. It took almost 40 years to get to this point, in the near term no recipe of policy fixes will sufficiently remedy the effects. Democrats need to focus on reversing those long-term trends, but also must have something to offer workers now.
Racism, fascism, and working-class Americans. If you’re looking for Trump’s implacable support, Texas trailer parks and Kentucky cabins are the wrong places to find it. Fascism develops over hands of poker in furnished basements, over the grill by the backyard pool, over beers on the commuter-rail ride back from the ball game—and in police stations and squad cars.
In spite of the economic boon for the wealthy, working people in the U.S. have yet to receive a significant improvement in their standard of living for over 30 years. At the same time, democratic forces are once again confronted with anti-immigrant campaigns. As socialists, we stand with and among the U.S. working class in opposition to the rule of the transnational corporations and their exploitation of the economy and despoliation of our lives, society and environment
Fences was not alone among Oscar nominees this year in representing working-class life in uncharacteristically sympathetic and insightful ways. Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, and even Hell or High Water all have extraordinary moments of insightful observation like this. Though each falls under more common rubrics, each is alive to the complexities and bravery of living life within insuperable limits.
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