Why Class Still Matters: Vivek Chibber on Marxism and the Left
Vivek Chibber
Abstract
This interview features sociologist Vivek Chibber in conversation with Jonathan Brown on the central arguments of The Class Matrix and the ongoing relevance of class analysis for socialist strategy. Chibber reasserts a classical Marxist conception of class rooted in structural relations to the means of production, arguing that exploitation — not income gradations or cultural identity — remains the fundamental engine of capitalist inequality and antagonism. He critiques the “cultural turn” in academia for displacing materialist analysis with frameworks centered on ideology, attitudes, and identity, contending that this shift stems from both analytical misunderstandings about worker consciousness and the sociological isolation of intellectuals from working-class movements. Chibber argues that workers are not misled by false consciousness but make rational strategic choices shaped by material constraints that favor individual over collective resistance. He further maintains that capitalism reproduces domination primarily through economic compulsion — fear of unemployment and workplace discipline — rather than pervasive ideological hegemony. The interview concludes with an assessment of how culturalist approaches have undermined class-based organizing in the United States, replacing universal working-class interests with fragile coalitions built on shared beliefs rather than shared material conditions. Chibber insists that rebuilding a viable socialist politics requires returning to a materialist, class-centered strategy grounded in the lived realities and structural interests of workers.
Keywords
Marxism, class analysis, classical Marxism, exploitation, materialism, working class, worker consciousness, ideology, identity politics, Vivek Chibbur, Jonathan Brown
