Appealing to a Class-Based Coalition

Framing is Key

The key to taking a class-based approach is to frame policy recommendations in terms of broadly held values and to link those values to specific policies that are designed to make our economy work for all working-class people.  But first, we need to change our attitude toward the working class. We must liberate the term “working class” from its association with white people. We should stop using the phrase “white working class” and make it clear that the working class includes people of all races and that all of them are oppressed. Some may be more oppressed than others because of the effects of racism, but all are oppressed by an economy that is rigged against them.

Stress Values

Once we see that working-class people of all races are oppressed, we can formulate values that express their right to a better life. Here are a few examples:

• It is wrong that the wealth of a few should be based on the oppression, poverty and insecurity of millions of hard-working Americans.
• It is wrong that hard-working people of all races should suffer while the rich pay no attention.
• It is wrong that children of hard-working parents should grow up in families that - at best - struggle to provide them with things that the children of rich families take for granted: a good breakfast in the morning, a warm winter coat, health care.
• It is wrong that we as a society are wasting so much of our human potential.

Frame Policies in Terms of Values

We should frame our policy prescriptions in terms of these moral values. For example:

•  The minimum wage should be raised so that hard-working Americans can receive a fair share of our national income, and so that working people can earn enough to support themselves and their children.
• We need national health insurance so that hard-working people will not be so poor and insecure that they have to choose between taking a sick child to the doctor and buying gas to get to work.
• We should offer inexpensive daycare for small children so that their parents can afford to go to work. We should do this because we do not want to waste our human potential.
• We should provide more affordable housing so that hard-working parents do not need to pay more than half of their incomes for inadequate housing. We should do this so that the children of working parents can provide their children with things like good breakfasts that richer children take for granted.
• We should offer free tuition at community colleges so that young people really can pull themselves up into the middle class, and we do not waste so much of our human potential
• We need a wealth tax so that we can reduce the concentration of wealth in our society and improve the lives of all working-class people. The wealth of the few should not depend on the misery of the many.

Framing the issues in this way will make it clear that working-class people can rise together. We do not need to make white working-class people poorer in order to improve the lot of people of color. Instead, by reducing the extreme concentration of wealth in the upper class, we can make improve the lives of all working-class people.

Repetition is Crucial

We must say these things and others like them over and over and over until they take their places among the generally accepted assumptions. We must make it clear that working-class people can rise together. If we do that, we will not persuade everyone, but we will be able to build a class-based coalition that is strong enough to make our society more just.

What About Reducing the Racial Wealth and Income Gap?

If we adopt the approach suggested here, we will reduce the racial wealth and income gaps. Any policy that benefits the working class as a whole will benefit people of color disproportionately because they are over-represented in the working class. You can read about more about this topic in a post in this blog entitled "Reducing Racial Inequity in the United States by Making Everyone's Life Better."

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