Capital & Class

The growing influence of far-right parties and their connections with security forces poses a significant threat, particularly given the security forces’ monopoly on legitimate violence and the far-right’s inherent distrust of democratic institutions. This article challenges the assumption that the trade union movement uniformly opposes far-right ideologies. Instead, we show that many representative organizations within the security forces actively support far-right initiatives, with police forces especially susceptible to such influence. Drawing on documentary evidence from Brazil and Portugal, our case studies reveal that far-right parties do not necessarily reject intermediary organizations, such as trade unions and professional associations, but rather strategically use them as ‘transmission belts’ to further their agenda. This article contributes to reconsidering the transmission belt concept and suggests pathways for future research in this area.

The emergence of large language models such as GPT3 has prompted intense debate about the transformative potential of generative AI to ‘revolutionise’ knowledge work and disrupt economic activity. This article represents an initial attempt to problematise this phenomenon within a Marxist analytical framework. Borrowing the term ‘algorithmic capitalism’ to refer both to the broad family of generative AI models and their anticipated effects on the social form, the article offers a two-stage analysis towards a potential political economy of this new technology. First, drawing on a classical Marxist analysis of labour-capital relations, the article investigates shocks to the exchange value of labour within knowledge work which are likely to arise from the widespread uptake of generative AI. Second, the article considers the semiotic effects of generative AI, and attempts to position these within the Marxist literature on the commodity fetish via Baudrillard’s concept of the hyperreal. In so doing, the article argues that the emergence of generative AI can be also understood in terms of a further advance of the commodity fetish, in which meaning itself is reified.

This article reframes the conventional discourse on China’s political and economic identity by examining contrasting perspectives on its status as either a capitalist or socialist. Through a critical juxtaposition between capitalist conceptualizations of the Chinese political economy and the parallel perspective of socialism with Chinese characteristics, we explore the meaningful sense in which China can be said to exhibit traits of both capitalism and socialism. The structure-centric perspective emphasizes China’s capitalist features, highlighting market mechanisms as the primary resource-allocation method. In contrast, the agency-centric perspective held by Chinese Marxists justifies capitalist elements within China’s socialist framework, positioning SWCC as a transitional phase toward communism. We challenge the inherent limitations of adopting exclusively structure- or agency-centric approaches, advocating for a more nuanced interpretation that transcends deterministic or voluntaristic pitfalls. Our argument posits that the oversimplified dichotomy overlooks the intricate dynamics emerging from the dialectical interplay between China’s integration into the global capitalist system and, in parallel, the purportedly socialist policy initiatives of the communist party-state. A dialectical perspective, illustrated by the application of a strategic-relational approach to China, invites scholars to engage theoretically with the hybrid elements characterizing China’s unique political-economic developmental trajectory, urging a more nuanced understanding of how China’s socialist legacy and capitalist reforms influence its developmental trajectory.

Since the 2007–2008 financial crisis, it has been suggested that the middle class is undergoing proletarianisation, with stagnant wages and reduced work autonomy making their conditions more like those of the working class. However, there is no consensus on whether this shift has occurred or on how to define the two classes. This article proposes a class concept rooted in value domination, which compels individuals to the market for survival. While both classes depend on the market, the middle class is defined by their greater individual market power and a labour power with higher value, resulting in higher wages and better working conditions. Using this definition, the proletarianisation thesis is examined in Sweden. Findings indicate a widening wage gap, with middle class wages diverging from those of the working class, and no significant reduction in middle class autonomy relative to the working class. These results suggest that proletarianisation has not occurred, and class distinctions have, in fact, intensified.

Following Laclau, we suggest populism is not only a set of ideas but a political conflict between the power bloc and groups (from outside and within the power bloc) marginalized by its dominant fraction. Populism arises when established forces exclude subaltern classes, creating frustration that generates openings for a genuine popular movement or dominated power bloc fractions to mobilize frustrations to improve their position. Thus, populism involves actual ‘anti-establishment’ conflict. It is distinguished from class conflicts by the low collective resources of populist supporters. Based on Poulantzas, we claim that populist mobilization utilizes the ‘popular-national’ dominant ideology, which is inscribed into the state, serves to atomize subaltern classes, and turns it into a source of potential empowerment. We use these insights to explain contemporary populist processes – neoliberal marginalization, mobilization, and conflict – in Europe and North America and to criticize ideational approaches to populism.

The growing polycrisis in Canada and elsewhere associated with deteriorating living and working conditions have increased calls for a post-capitalist socialist economy. Among the means of accomplishing this goal is the late Erik Olin Wright’s argument for eroding capitalism by developing alternative economic structures and processes that enable equality and fairness, democracy and freedom, and community and solidarity in a post-capitalist society. In this article, we consider how one of the means cited by Wright for eroding capitalist structures, credit unions, can contribute to this goal. Credit unions are non-profit and member-owned financial institutions that in addition to offering all the services of for-profit banks, usually at lower costs to clients, provide an alternative public ownership model to capitalist finance and privately owned food production and distribution, housing, transportation, and telecommunications. We also propose that in addition to providing a model of collective ownership credit unions can – in collaboration with other social movements – take on a broad advocacy role calling for public policy that more equitably distributes economic and social resources to the population.