My guest Michael A. McCarthy joins me to discuss his critique of "class abstractionism" or the tendency to theorize the working class in ways that result in vulgar and reductive conclusions. While McCarthy directs his critique to Vivek Chibber and his work The Class Matrix, we also discuss class abstractionism more broadly and how it appears on today's left. We speculate on ways to better theorize class while remaining critical of left-liberal identity politics. McCarthy, along with co-author Mathieu Hikaru Desan published their critique of class abstractionism in Sociological Theory, “The Problem of Class Abstractionism" in 2023. McCarthy is a critical sociologist and his work is on class structure and class formation. He explores the past and possible futures of radical economic democracy. McCarthy is faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz and he is the author, most recently of The Master’s Tools published January 2025 with Verso Books. Learn more about the book here .
