On class formation, fragmentation, pessimism and optimism.

George and contributing editor Leigh Phillips talk to Dan Evans, a writer and academic based in South Wales. We discuss his piece in the New Socialist, ‘Is the Working Class Back?’ and themes emerging from it.

• How important are definitions of class?
• If the working class remains weak and fragmented, and its politics increasingly chaotic, what is to be done?
• How does Gabriel Winant's pessimism about the industrial working class compare to Evans'?
• What are the class contradictions of the contemporary Left?
• Who is the real oppositional class today? Should we be more positive about the petite bourgeoisie?

Links:

• Is the Working Class Back?, Dan Evans, New Socialist
• A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie, Dan Evans, Repeater Books
• /349/ The PMC & Their Politics ft. Dan Evans & Catherine Liu