Has the working class disappeared Fact and fiction

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument¶

The article's central thesis is that the working class has not disappeared, diminished, or become irrelevant — contrary to a widespread academic and media narrative. Fred Weston argues that this narrative is ideologically motivated, reflecting the defeats of the 1970s–80s and the collapse of Stalinism, not empirical reality. The working class, defined by its relationship to the means of production rather than by income, education, or occupation type, has in fact grown massively in absolute numbers and global weight. The apparent decline of the industrial working class in advanced capitalist countries masks both a huge increase in productivity (which concentrates power in fewer hands) and a massive expansion of industrial employment in the Global South. The article claims that the objective balance of class forces has never been more favourable to the working class, and that the task is to build revolutionary leadership capable of realising this potential.

Theoretical Grounding¶

The analysis is rooted in the classical Marxist definition of class found in the Communist Manifesto: the proletariat as "the class of modern wage-labourers, who having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live." This is deployed to cut through sociological definitions based on income brackets, education levels, or occupational prestige — categories that obscure the fundamental relation of exploitation.

The article draws on Marx's distinction between productive and unproductive labour, but applies it broadly: workers in transport, cleaning, education, and healthcare are included in the working class insofar as they contribute to the reproduction of labour power or the circulation of capital. The argument about productivity — that fewer workers today produce vastly more than their predecessors — implicitly references Marx's law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, though it is not named. The claim that reduced numbers of workers in key sectors (energy, transport) increases their potential power is a strategic point about the growing socialisation of production and the vulnerability of capital to disruption.

The article also draws on the Marxist theory of imperialism and the global mobility of capital. The relocation of manufacturing to lower-wage countries is understood not as a sign of working-class decline but as a recomposition of the class on a world scale. This situates the argument within the tradition of Trotskyist and revolutionary Marxist analysis, which has always insisted on the international character of the working class and the necessity of a global perspective.

Conjunctural Relevance¶

The article is published in September 2023, a moment of deep and overlapping crises: the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation and cost-of-living pressures across the advanced capitalist world, and significant strike waves in France (against the pension age rise), Britain (NHS workers, rail workers, teachers), and elsewhere. The article explicitly references these movements — France, Britain, Peru, Sri Lanka — as evidence that the working class is "waking up."

The conjuncture is defined by the exhaustion of the neoliberal offensive that began in the late 1970s. The defeats of that period (the British miners' strike 1984–85, PATCO 1981, FIAT 1980) created a lull, but the underlying objective conditions — a massively expanded global working class, heightened exploitation, and a system in structural crisis — are now reasserting themselves. The article argues that the subjective factor (consciousness, organisation, leadership) lags behind the objective factor (the size and power of the class), and that this gap is the central political problem.

The global data cited is specific: 700 million industrial workers worldwide; China's manufacturing sector now larger than that of the United States; India's manufacturing workforce equal to France and Italy combined; a global workforce of 3.6 billion. These figures are drawn from the International Labour Organisation and other official sources, and are used to counter the narrative of deindustrialisation and working-class decline.

Where the Argument Continues¶

The article is primarily a polemical and empirical defence of the continued existence and growth of the working class. It does not develop a detailed analysis of the internal differentiation of the class — for example, the distinction between the core industrial proletariat and the growing precariat, or the political implications of the expansion of service-sector and platform work. These questions are left open.

The argument about the relationship between objective class position and subjective class consciousness is raised but not fully explored. The article notes that workers may not perceive themselves as working class, but that crisis can shatter this illusion. A fuller treatment of how consciousness develops — and what blocks it — would require engagement with the Marxist theory of ideology and the role of reformist and Stalinist parties in demobilising the class.

The article also does not address the question of the labour aristocracy — the stratum of better-paid workers in the imperialist centres who may be materially integrated into the system — though this concept is central to the Marxist analysis of why the working class in advanced countries has not yet broken with capitalism. This is a significant gap, given that the article's optimism about the objective balance of forces would need to be tempered by an analysis of the subjective obstacles within the class itself.

For these continuations, readers should consult other IDOM articles on the labour aristocracy, the nature of the state, and the political economy of the current crisis. Against the Stream episodes on the French pension strikes, the British rail strikes, and the global cost-of-living crisis would provide concrete case studies of the dynamics the article points to.

Connections¶

Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto: The foundational definition of the proletariat and the claim that the working class is the gravedigger of capitalism.
Geoffrey Evans and James Tilley, The New Politics of Class: A sociological study that defends the continued relevance of class but, from a Marxist perspective, misclassifies many wage workers as middle class.
Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters, The Death of Class: The postmodernist text that serves as the article's primary polemical target.
Trotsky, The Transitional Programme: On the relationship between objective conditions and subjective leadership; the article's conclusion echoes Trotsky's insistence that the crisis of humanity is the crisis of revolutionary leadership.
IDOM articles on the labour aristocracy and the crisis of reformism: For the political obstacles to working-class consciousness.
Against the Stream episodes on the French and British strike waves: For concrete analysis of the movements the article references.

Key Quotes¶

"To be working class, or proletarian, means that in order to make a living you have to sell your ability to work to someone else. Marx and Engels referred to 'the class of modern wage-labourers, who having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.'"
"Far from pointing to a weakening of the working class, the fact that fewer workers produce more in less time has massively increased their power. For example, fewer workers are employed in the energy sector than in the past... But this reduced number of workers objectively have immense power, for they could paralyse the whole economy if they went on strike."
"The reduction in numbers of the industrial workers in the advanced capitalist countries does not at all imply a contraction of the working class as a whole. On the contrary, these roles will have been replaced by other forms of wage labour in other sectors in the advanced capitalist countries, and new workers will be brought into production as production plants are opened in countries where wages are lower."
"In the same period [as deindustrialisation in the advanced countries], in the formerly 'less-developed world', the number of industrial workers has increased from around 190 million to 500 million. That is an increase of over 300 million."
"Objectively speaking, the balance of class forces has therefore never been more favourable than it is today for the working class. This is the real situation. The people who made the shoes I wear, the table I sit at, and the food I eat do, in fact, exist."
"The people at the top, the capitalist class and their serious strategists, are, however, fully conscious of how big the working class really is, and they fear for their own future should this class become conscious of its own strength."