Justice & class consciousness: a theory of political transition

Many people feel that the stark political and economic divides which characterise contemporary capitalist societies are unjust. Political philosophers have responded to intuitions like these by defending a series of alternative institutional arrangements - social democracy, property-owning democracy, liberal socialism - which they claim could radically reduce these inequalities. What is currently missing from the now voluminous normative literature on alternatives to the political-economic status quo, however, is a theory of political transition: an account which specifies the actions that might play a desirable role, under present political conditions, in making a less starkly divided society of some kind a more realistic future prospect. Justice & Class Consciousness argues that one particularly attractive strategy for realising a fairer economy (and a fairer world) is that of raising class consciousness. This idea is a familiar one in Marxist thought but is seldom invoked in contemporary debates about social justice, with many philosophers fearing that it relies on questionable class-reductionist assumptions or has little relevance in post-industrial economies. This thesis shows how a reframed conception of class consciousness - understood as a complex of robustly action-guiding beliefs and desires about power hierarchies in economic production - can overcome these worries. It also makes a case for why raising this type of class consciousness can be what it calls a “feasibility-enhancing outcome”, increasing the chances of realising radical economic transformations. The final chapters then highlight the valuable role that political practices such as democratic municipalism, organising conversations, and activist-led education can play in effectively and permissibly achieving this raised consciousness. The result is a partial answer to the familiar refrain which often greets proponents of a radically more just society: “but how do we get there?”.