Class issues became central to the 2016 presidential campaign in ways that I can’t recall for any other election in my lifetime. And even now, during the post-election debate, the references to class remain widespread.
It’s not that the discussion of class in relation to the election has been particularly interesting or revealing. Americans, especially political pundits, still fumble around with what class means and how it can or should be defined. And one would be hard-pressed to find anything even close to or informed by a particularly Marxian notion of class in the many books, articles, and columns that have appeared in recent years.
So, while I move ahead with my own analysis of the class conditions leading up to Trump’s victory and the class implications of Trumponomics, I thought it would be useful for readers to list in one place references (in chronological order, from oldest to newest) to some of the pieces I’ve written (pertaining only to the United States) over the course of the past couple of years.
Class and the Goldilocks principle
Class warfare—Democratic and Republican style
What’s class got to do with it?
Generation screwed—and working-class
Vicious cycle of class inequality and segregation
“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class”
Higher education for the working-class
What about the white working-class?
Condition of the working-class in the United States
Mainstream economists, globalization, and Trump
To be clear (as I’ve written many times before), I don’t think one can or should reduce the election to class—to attempt to explain its conditions and consequences only or even primarily in terms of class. That would be a serious mistake. But it would be equally mistaken to ignore or overlook class in attempting to make sense of what is going on right now in the United States.
occasional links & commentary 