How the Left and the Right Collaborate to Split the Working Class

Conservatives and Progressives Collaborate to Split the Working Class 

In American politics, conservatives and progressive collaborate unintentionally to split the working class and to prevent the emergence of a progressive majority. The collaboration has come about because we have forgotten how to talk about class conflict in our politics. During the nineteen fifties, we stopped talking about class differences and instead focused on racial differences in discussions of injustice and inequality in our country. The elimination of class conflict from our discussion of injustice and inequality prevents us from seeing the fundamental basis of injustice in our society and divides the electorate in a way that prevents the emergence of a progressive majority.

The Fundamental Basis of Injustice

The fundamental basis of injustice and inequality in our country is that wealth and income are very unequally distributed. A small upper class and a somewhat larger patrimonial middle class own an outlandish share of the country’s wealth and receive an outlandish share of its income. The bottom half of the population owns practically nothing and receives a very small share of the national income. The result is that a large share of our population lives precariously while the upper class and the patrimonial middle class live well.

The division between the two upper classes and the working class is not primarily racial, although it has a racial aspect. It is true that people of color have on average much less wealth and income than white people, but it is also true that most white people belong to the working class. They are regular, working people who share the precariousness of working-class life in America.

Why Don't We Make Life Less Precarious?

We could provide services to make working-class life less precarious. We could provide a national health care system that would eliminate the financial risk associated with being sick; we could provide a real, national pension system that would allow people to age with dignity; we could finance our system of post-secondary education in a way that would eliminate the need for students to go into debt; we could provide affordable childcare so that parents could afford to go to work; and there are lots of other possibilities.

We are unable to do any of these things because the political constituency for such reforms is fragmented along racial lines, and that fragmentation is not simply an unintended result of our history and culture. It has been deliberately fomented by conservatives to split the working class and thereby t prevent the passage of the needed reforms. The racial differences and prejudices that characterize our large and diverse country have provided fertile ground for the deliberate creation of “populist” conservative political movements like the movement that supports Mr. Trump, but such political movements do not emerge magically from a culture. Building them takes effort, and that effort requires lots of money.

Conservatives Fund Racist Political Movements

The money is provided by extremely wealthy individuals. They fund populist movements to provide political support for conservative, political candidates who vote to keep taxes low.  In other words, white, working-class people are persuaded that their problems – which are real – are due to factors related to race like “unfair competition” from cheap immigrant labor.  White workers are told that “welfare queens” are living a life of ease while “real Americans” have to work hard just to survive. White workers are told that shadowy “elites” want to replace them with non-whites. Many white people are thus persuaded to vote their racial identity rather than their class identity, and their votes provide electoral support for policies that benefit the very rich.

Is there danger that taxes might increase to support a national healthcare system? The danger can be averted if people can be induced to vote their racial prejudices. Is there a danger that taxes might be increased to support a system of affordable childcare? That danger too may be averted if people can be persuaded to vote their racial identities. Thus, the very wealthy work to split the constituency for progressive reforms.

Progressives Accept the Racist Definition of the Conflict

Progressives could offer an alternative view. They could emphasize class solidarity, but they do not do so. Instead, they merely turn the right’s appeal on its head. They agree that the axis of conflict is racial but say that white people are the oppressors while people of color are the oppressed. This race-based explanation cannot attract the support of white working-class people because it denies the reality of their lived experience. They can see easily that they do not belong to the ruling class. They are in fact oppressed by our system, but the racial analysis offered by the left denies the reality of their oppression by saying that in our society, only people of color are oppressed. In contrast, the right's analysis speaks directly to white working-class people. It explains the reasons for their suffering in terms that are easily understood. 

White people who are driving for Uber, working as pickers in a warehouse or operating cash registers at Walmart know that they are struggling to live. They know that they live in a system that is rigged against them. Perhaps they are marginally better off than black people in the same occupations, but that difference is not apparent to them. The left’s appeal to racism as the cause of the suffering of working Americans denies the reality of the suffering of white working-class people, and we should not be surprised that such an appeal does not attract their votes. 

Thus, the left collaborates unwittingly with the right to split the working-class vote. If the axis of oppression is exclusively racial, white people are on one side and people of color are on the other. White workers and white capitalists are on the same team, and people of color are on the opposing team. This situation supports the interests of the very rich by preventing the formation of a coalition with enough strength to pass legislation to advance social justice in the United States. The effect of the focus on race is ironically that we are unable to advance the cause of social justice even for people of color.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Next week's post will take up this question. Stay tuned.