Last month, I blogged about the challenges of teaching an
analysis of the US class structure that recognizes our sizeable
working-class majority and critiques the myth of the broad
inclusive “middle class.” I closed by questioning what’s at
stake for us in posing this analysis and how effective it can be
in the present moment for teaching and political organizing. A
number of you responded, including a forceful reminder that Karl
Marx had some important things to say about classes. A point
well taken, since Marxism still provides, I believe, the most
comprehensive account of how class operates in society,
including culture, politics, and economics. By leaving Marx out,
I sidestepped his analysis of how class antagonism arises within
the relations of production under capitalism, based on the
exploitation of workers’ labor power. I also avoided the
complicated question of the status of middle classes in a
Marxist account — a topic addressed, as another respondent
reminded us, by sociologist Erik Olin Wright, wh