Episode 406 of RevolutionZ continues excerpting the seven author book, Liberating Theory, to take up the task of arriving at usefull economic concepts for winning fundamental social change. Markets set prices but also train our desires, narrow what we think is “normal,” and quietly shape the people we become at work and at home. From there the chapter from *Liberating Theory* goes presents a then new story about economics, class, and why I still think it matters forty years later.
It starts with a simple but disruptive claim: every economic act consumes inputs and produces outputs, and those inputs and outputs include human beings. Jobs can produce exhaustion, passivity, confidence, resentment, solidarity, or dependence. Consumption can produce status shifts, isolation, or connections. This all affects thoughts and inclinations so any serious political economy has to include qualitative outcomes like skills, consciousness, and social relations, not only GDP-style totals.
From there Liberating Theory builds a sharper class analysis of capitalism that goes beyond workers and owners. Alongside capitalists and the working class, we name a coordinator class of empowered managers, technocrats, and professionals who hold decision-making power through monopolies of information and organizational knowledge. We also dig into the “middle strata” tensions that shape organizing, then connect economic outcomes to race and gender dynamics rooted in patriarchy and white supremacy. The closing dialogue takes on Marxist economics, central planning, and the risk that a “socialist” transition can still produce a new ruling class.
Forty years ago, twenty years on from the New Left of the Sixties the seen authors of Liberating Theory sought new ideas for new labor organizing, class politics, and conceiving and winning new institutions for real self-management. Did they have good reason? Did they make progress? Can what they thought be of use now, fighting Trump, fighting fascism, and seeking a new economy? I think so, but it is for you to decide. I hope you will share this episode with a friend who argues about class and leave a comment with the biggest questions you have about its merits or debits.
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