De-industrialisation fragmented labour and replaced class struggle with identity politics

Evidence

Underlying this transformation of the left was, of course, the West’s de-industrialisation, which fragmented the labouring classes, a process that technofeudalism continues to this day. When the working class was still relatively homogenous, a relatively solid class consciousness allowed it to put at least a degree of pressure on social democratic governments. Today, class struggle has been replaced by so-called ‘identity politics’. Tragically, the drive to protect racial, sexual, ethnic and religious minorities and for reparative justice suits just fine people in power who like to appear socially liberal. They enthusiastically embed those causes in their language as long as they only pay lip service to them and do little of substance to protect minorities from the systemic causes of their oppression. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 672

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier reading on social capital and how community fragmentation affects collective action; also to Marxist critique material on class structure. — connects to: The fragmentation of activist collectives aided capitalism’s current dominance — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 348; Social democracy collapses when no one represents the labouring side — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 674; Identity politics of recognition displaced wealth redistribution in 1980s Britain — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 153 (+13 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 672

Broader Connections

• Identity politics of recognition displaced wealth redistribution in 1980s Britain #exemplifies (0.95) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 153
• European deindustrialization after the 1970s fragmented entire categories of employed people #expands (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3152
• Postindustrial society narratives ideologically mask continuing class struggle. #contradicts (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 39
• Neoliberalism replaces labor with human capital and dissolves the stable self #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 162
• A singular focus on labour movements misreads modernity’s multidimensional dynamics #qualifies (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 374
• Post-cold-war racism defeated Marxian class-based explanations #responds-to (0.75)