Working-Class Politics and Identity Politics: An Engagement with Michael Zweig

It is a pleasure to read Michael Zweig's works 1 written as they are, for the working-class majority in the United States.In his earlier 2012 work, Zweig examined the distribution of American occupations from the vantage point of power, to claim that the U.S. working class was 63% of the labor force.His latest 2023 text uses updated data on occupational categories 2 to identify 62% of the labor force as working-class; 36% as middle-class; and 2% as the capitalist-class, on the basis of relative power in the occupations.If the working class remains the solid majority, this inescapable social fact remains hidden from most Americans who mistakenly identify themselves as middle class.The progressive political implications of America's "best-kept secret" have yet to be fully realized.Why this is the case stimulates Zweig to offer an incisive analysis of class relations and a novel interpretation of the middle class.These analyses are based consistently on Zweig's understanding of relative power, defined as the degree of authority and autonomy (independence) at America's workplaces.Whether or not Zweig's findings are generalizable across the world economy, progressive movements that foreground working class interests have much to gain by politicizing America's best kept secret.Such a politicization however has to navigate the multiple dangers that arise when class identity comes into conflictual relationships with race, ethnic, gender, religious, and national identities attached to workers.These identities can be tremendously divisive.As Zweig notes, "history has shown us time and again how class, race, and gender movements have clashed countless times to the detriment of all" 3 .What values and strategies may overcome these divisions within the working class?Zweig claims that only a dialectical investigation of the relationships between economy, religion, culture and politics, can help us navigate successfully the depths of class, race, ethnicity, gender and religion.Among the economic, religious, political and other institutions that mutually intertwine as processes in the U.S. social formation, is it necessary to accord primacy of determination to any one of them?Zweig takes a firm position on this question: "Societies are obviously enormously complex structures that involve far more than the economy.People create cultures, religious beliefs, and political procedures, as well as institutions to organize and perpetuate them.All these deeply influence human experience, far beyond the methods of economic life.But, whatever the 1 The two landmark texts I engage with here are Zweig (2012) The Working-Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret, Second Edition; and Zweig (2023) Class, Race, and Gender: Challenging the Injuries and Divisions of Capitalism, PM Press.Key themes in the former text reappear in the latter, with a special focus on the dialectics of class, race, and gender. 2 Zweig uses U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics for several occupational categories.Compare Table 1 on p.30 with Table 1 on p.95 in his