Class Dynamics: From Peasants to Modern Workers

This chapter examines class dynamics through Marx's writings, focusing on the isolated experiences of small holding peasants in France. It connects these historical insights to the contemporary struggles of American workers, emphasizing the impact of modern consumption on their sense of community and collective identity.

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Is the Marxist conception of class outdated? In this episode of 1Dime Radio, I’m joined by Dave from Theory Underground to unpack the “Post-Class Fractured Mass” (PCFM): why the working class, the “proletariat” no longer coheres the way Marxists imagined, how media + schooling carve us into niches and swarms, and what this means for organizing today. We talk about why the decline of working-class power is due to real material factors in the economy, and not just due to ideology and “class consciousness.” This brings us to the pivotal question: in the age of the gig economy, is the working class obsolete as the agent of revolutionary change? If so, who is the revolutionary subject today?

In the backroom, we discuss the issues with the term “Post-Left”, how people burn out from politics, and how bourgeois pseudoprogressive libertine attitudes bleed into leftist circles (like polyamory, non-monogamy, etc). Become a patron at Patreon.com/OneDime if you haven’t already!

Timestamps:

00:00:00 The Backroom Preview

05:15 The Post-Class Fractured Mass (PCFM)

07:08 Jobs, Careers, & Time-energy

10:33 “Progressive” schooling as sorting/gatekeeping

25:54 From Class Power to Popular Front of "The Vulnerable"

30:14 Outsourcing, deindustrialization & Stratification

36:35 The “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”

42:27 Can the Democratic Party be “reformed”?

50:10 The Gig Economy and The Breakdown of Solidarity

01:02:08 Ideological Gerrymandering

01:21:45 AI & Transition to The Backroom