While Marxists and others on the Left are correct to point out that many college-educated progressives are themselves part of the working class — even many lawyers and doctors must work for a paycheck to survive, after all — the key to socialist political strategy is uniting the whole working-class around a majoritarian agenda. For a civilizational challenge like shifting away from fossil fuels, only broad-based working-class power is capable of achieving what planetary systems require. To build that power, we need to understand why we are failing to win many workers to our politics, and how we can change that.
The “punk” part ain’t no joke
I agree with this in general - it’s the billionaire class that’s causing most of the problems for everyone else. Unfortunately for some activists, their anti-colonialism and anti-authority approach spills over into anti-intellectual, anti-science attitudes like rejecting scientific consensus on climate change, vaccines, infection management etc.
During the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic I was saddened to see many people whom I considered comrades reject science based medical advice, falling into anti-vax conspiracy theories and other nonsense because of their distrust of what they dismissed as “Western Science”. It’s that pathway that worries me about climate change. I’ve seen that happen already, with people who love their V8 petrol cars rejecting EVs and green energy because they see it as being pushed by “the government” which they don’t trust.