Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber
Jun 10, 2026 · 47 min · 14 segments
In the midst of Graham Platner’s high-profile senate race in Maine, several media commentators jumped on whether he would fit within his own definition of the working class. Do we know how to pick out…
Vivek ChibberHost
Melissa NaschekHostNo entities detected.
A lot of the news has mostly been highlighting these controversial scandals, you know, the veracity of which is a little bit-
And, you know, a lot of people on the left are saying that really this news cycle is a deliberate move by the Obama and Biden wing of the party to kill his campaign because he's, he's essentially running as an outsider and has already, in terms of the ballot box, effectively beat out the establishment candidate.
And the attacks are kind of coming at him from all angles, but one that caught our eye was this Bloomberg article saying that, you know, Graham Platner is being presented as this working-class candidate.
Quote from the article, "Nobody even knows what the working class means anymore." And I think what the working class is, that's something that we care about a lot, and also has a very important implications for political strategy and assessing these types of candidates that are running on a more sort of populist, worker-focused agenda.
I, I should say, and we should say right at the outset, it doesn't matter if Graham Platner is a worker or not.
But it is important for the left to have clarity on what constitutes the working class.
And when we can identify somebody's class position as being that of a worker or not, because, duh, you have to know who to organize.
Um, and if you are not clear on what it means to be a worker, that's gonna lead to confused politics.
Now, it's not at all surprising that Bloomberg has a headline that says, "Nobody knows what a worker is." What they ought to have said is, "We don't know what a worker is."
But I think even though it's a foundational pillar of socialist politics, and you kind of assume people will know what they're talking about when they talk about workers, I don't think that's a fair assumption.
A lot of the news has mostly been highlighting these controversial scandals, you know, the veracity of which is a little bit-
And, you know, a lot of people on the left are saying that really this news cycle is a deliberate move by the Obama and Biden wing of the party to kill his campaign because he's, he's essentially running as an outsider and has already, in terms of the ballot box, effectively beat out the establishment candidate.
And the attacks are kind of coming at him from all angles, but one that caught our eye was this Bloomberg article saying that, you know, Graham Platner is being presented as this working-class candidate.
Quote from the article, "Nobody even knows what the working class means anymore." And I think what the working class is, that's something that we care about a lot, and also has a very important implications for political strategy and assessing these types of candidates that are running on a more sort of populist, worker-focused agenda.
I, I should say, and we should say right at the outset, it doesn't matter if Graham Platner is a worker or not.
But it is important for the left to have clarity on what constitutes the working class.
And when we can identify somebody's class position as being that of a worker or not, because, duh, you have to know who to organize.
Um, and if you are not clear on what it means to be a worker, that's gonna lead to confused politics.
Now, it's not at all surprising that Bloomberg has a headline that says, "Nobody knows what a worker is." What they ought to have said is, "We don't know what a worker is."
But I think even though it's a foundational pillar of socialist politics, and you kind of assume people will know what they're talking about when they talk about workers, I don't think that's a fair assumption.
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