Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber Reviving Class Politics Today
Oct 8, 2025
In a pivotal keynote address, Vivek Chibber examines the evolution of capitalism and the Left since the 2008 crisis. He discusses how neoliberalism's legitimacy is crumbling amid rising inequality. Chibber critiques the dominance of identity politics over class issues and emphasizes the need to rebuild grassroots political institutions. He highlights Zohran Mamdani's campaign as a beacon for economic populism, calling for a revival of class-focused political discourse and the importance of sustained organizing beyond electoral victories.
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Neoliberalism's Crisis Opened A Political Opportunity
- Neoliberalism lost legitimacy due to extreme inequality and slow growth after decades of seeming permanence.
- That delegitimation created a rare opening for the left but also revealed the political class's inability to offer alternatives.
Left Lost Its Working-Class Anchor
- Four decades of weakened unions and hollowed parties erased the left's organizational anchors in the working class.
- The result was ideological confusion where universities and NGOs replaced unions as the primary left institutions.
Elite Institutions Filled The Organizing Void
- The vacuum created by union decline let identity-focused elites dominate left discourse and question class primacy.
- That produced a left that often cannot imagine ordinary working people as the central political agents.