> But it is precisely for these reasons that the working class is unlikely to be decisive in shaping politics for the foreseeable future. However one defines the working class, it has scarcely any political agency in the current system and no apparent means for acquiring any. At most, working-class voters can cast their ballots for an “unacceptable” candidate, but they can exercise no influence on policy formation or agency personnel, much less on governance areas that have been transferred to technocratic bodies.
While I don't really agree with the author on this point, I think the basis of the claim is implied to be the election of Trump. Trump prevailing in the primary (and the general even) could be seen as a referendum of the working class on establishment politics.
And yet, what has changed? Trump hasn't brought back American industry as promised, nor has he made a trillion dollars infrastructure package as promised. He has succeeded in a tax plan (approved by establishment Republicans in the Senate), supreme Court picks (approved), etc.
The authors argument would be that this illustrates that picking the occasional anti establishment candidate doesn't uproot necessary structural change which happens across a large number of both elected and nonelected organizations, and well-connected elites are implied to be the only ones in a position to affect such change.
> occasional anti establishment candidate doesn't uproot necessary structural change
The anti-establishment is the bare minimum for structural change to happen. The difficulties that Obama and now Trump have faced in bring change (whatever their version of it), actually make the point more strongly that we need even more out of the box thinking in our leadership.
Underrated comment. This is deeply true, but points to something ominous. There isn't really a way that this political vortex ends except through ever more extreme policies/pendulum swings.
I hear you, but that's an argument that the person that the "working class" voted in has been ineffectual in bringing about the change they are looking for (debatable). That's not an argument that they are not decisive in shaping politics. If electing Trump is a referendum on "the elite" then his election proves the opposite, no?
I think I might agree with the author in a more limited context, that on an institution by institution basis there is a fair amount of power that is outside the reach of voting and hence outside the influence of the working class.
An example here is the federal reserve. Interest rate decisions and quantitative easing decisions are vastly influential, and famously independent of the president.
I don't subscribe to any conspiracy theories that the federal reserve is being controlled by the rich. However, I think there's no doubt that both the individuals at the top of the fed, and their professional circles, have no overlap with the working class, and in the long run this shows.
For example, when the fed did their last interest rate increase near the end of 2018, the stock market essentially revolted, with a "huge" correction (to about august 2017 values). The federal reserve acquiesced to pressure and proceeded to take a much more dovish tone, following with 3 rate cuts the next year.
There's another story there about a trade war, low inflation, and sustaining an expansion. But if you take a look at a long term graph of interest rates over time from 1980 to present, you see a trend of going down, down, down. It just so happens that interest rates going down also inflates asset values.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the asset-owning class that populates the federal reserve often makes decision that benefit those who own assets.
If you look longer term, after WWII there was this cycle of recession and recovery, but each recovery was at higher interest rates. This lasted until 1979. Then the Fed, led by Volcker, changed policy. Since then, each cycle has been at lower interest rates - but higher unemployment.
I agree with your points generally, but I don't think these are the claims put forward in this article. The article makes sweeping generalizations without any basis (AFAICS).
In a nutshell, public choice theory. Try The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan which explores the phenomenon from a systems standpoint without being especially partisan or ideological.
But does the book look at it from the angle of the working class specifically? Knowing only the broad thesis of that book, I'm not sure it's relevant to the claim made in this article which is about the working class specifically.
To a large extent. Like any academic work you'll need to do some of the work to joint he dots from the source material to whatever socioeconomic schema you prefer, it's not written to conform to a particular ideological tendency.
What's the basis for this sweeping claim?