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Identity politics

Maybe for today’s left, which puts identity politics ahead of class politics. Sanders? He actually believes in the international labor movement, in socialist economics. Other than an aside in favor of equal pay for equal work, and the assertion that “we can live in a country” where “every person, no matter their race, their religion, their disability, or their sexual orientation realizes the full promise of equality that is our birthright as Americans,” and a section on “reversing climate change”—break out your sweaters—his speech was devoted to the traditional left-wing question of who gets how much when.

“The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time,” he said. And “for the last 40 years the great middle class of our country—once the envy of the world—has been disappearing.” This economic imbalance creates a political imbalance in favor of billionaire donors. “This is not democracy. This is oligarchy.”

What to do? Publicly fund elections. Oppose trade agreements. Break up the banks. Raise the minimum wage to $15. Spend $1 trillion over five years on infrastructure. Raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. Establish Medicare-for-All. Expand Social Security, legislate universal pre-K, “make tuition in public colleges and universities free.”

It’s an old left-winger’s dream: a larger government, a more equal—and in all likelihood poorer—country. But whether the country is poorer doesn’t matter to Sanders, because his critique of capitalism is fundamentally moral. The market might make us rich, but it doesn’t make us good, or kind, or just.