Exploitation, Marx, and the American Working Class: A Misunderstanding
Batya Ungar-Sargon | Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women | Encounter Books | April 2024
As I’m embarking upon a new sociological study involving interviews with working-class residents of the Cleveland area and seeking to understand their views on a number of cultural and political issues, I’ve been reading nearly everything I can on the topic of working-class Americans in the 21st century. Dozens of interviews in, it’s clear that some findings diverge from similar studies (i.e. Strangers in Their Own Land, Rust Belt Union Blues) while there are certain particularities to the Cleveland area. For one thing, while, in general, many individuals without a four-year college degree have drifted towards the Republicans, many working-class Cleveland residents continue voting for Democrats despite having their own reservations.
In Batya Ungar-Sargon’s recently published Second Class: How Elites Betrayed the Working Class, she engages similar questions. Ungar-Sargon has had an interesting trajectory as a writer and journalist. In many locations, you can find her, or the outlet covering her work, highlighting her identification as a Marxist or “vulgar Marxist” and the fact she completed a literature Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, the alleged bastion of academic leftism. Oddly though, she has become a regular guest in conservative media outlets, including Fox News. In recent months, she’s taken to defending JD Vance and Donald Trump, as “true champions of the working class,” even arguing that this is why the media no longer praises Vance: “[The media] view Vance as a traitor to their class and will continue to treat him accordingly. They will continue to defend their prerogatives and attack anyone who questions their authority. That’s where the true hatred for Trump stems from, and for anyone willing to join him in standing for the American working class against those who look down on it.” In some ways, these are not surprising comments given that her first book has the phrase “Woke Media” in its title.
While she positions herself as an inside critic fed up with the excesses of the left, and as someone who embraces Marxist ideas herself, her recent work demonstrates serious confusion about the nature of exploitation, one of the most basic Marxist concepts. Perhaps the most jarring aspect of the book though is how many of the quotes that she selects betray one of her major arguments, which is the argument that: workers do not view work as exploitative but rather as an honor that connects them with their ancestors. Bizarrely, she seems to argue that the Marxist concept of exploitation is that workers do not enjoy any work, find no value in it, and that they ultimately wish to be freed from work. She writes:
The Marxist view of work as inherently exploitative, something people would ideally be freed from, has taken on new life on the American Left as well as the free-market Right, with ideas like Universal Basic Income. But the working-class Americans I spoke to over the past year didn’t view work as exploitative. They viewed the value of hard work through an almost spiritual lens, as though it were a precious inheritance that continued to connect them with their parents, who as children they saw getting up every morning and going out to provide for their families.
Her understanding of the concept of exploitation is incorrect in a very basic way. It’s possible she’s thinking of the concept of alienation, but her understanding of this concept is still not accurate and remains divorced from the nature of capitalism and how it produces alienation, according to Marx. The concept of exploitation, however, is that the value of the work that is performed by workers is extracted by management and shareholders as profits. In other words, workers are not compensated properly for the value they create. Indeed, some of the quotes she selects from some folks she interviewed demonstrably show that they actually recognize their own exploitation, as well as evidencing feelings of alienation
Take for example the first individual we meet: Gord Magill. Magill, a truck driver, tells us how his bosses have treated him unfairly, not paid him well, and, as a result, he and his family are barely getting by. He talks of how he tried to provide suggestions to his previous boss, but they wouldn’t listen to him. The next interviewee tells us a similar story of how Uber and DoorDash don’t pay her enough to afford her bills, and onwards: that workers are treated unfairly by their bosses and not paid well.These are the textbook definitions of exploitation and alienation: not getting paid enough and not enjoying a responsive and democratically inclusive work environment. How an alleged Marxist can’t see this is utterly baffling.
Ungar-Sargon also does a nice job of clearly cherry-picking her interviews to fit her own narrative. How might we know this? There’s not one bit of contrary evidence that’s provided in her narrative. In other words, you’re telling me that all her interviewees told her the same things as everyone else? That’s simply unheard of. Just like any other group, working-class individuals are not interchangeable and there’s much disagreement between them. Yet, Ungar-Sargon leads us to believe there is near total consensus on a startling number of issues.
While she spends the first portion of the book documenting the struggles (and exploitation and alienation…) of working-class folks, she thereafter discusses the alleged views of working-class folks. In the introduction and conclusion of the text, Ungar-Sargon claims for instance that workers are “worried about the spread of transgender ideology.” Yet, she never explains what this apparent “ideology” is and cites only one individual who says that she wishes politicians would focus on other issues besides transgender rights – not that she is “worried” about them.
This all leaves one puzzling why she would centralize such a claim. In addition, in my own work when asked directly, most working-class folks I’ve interviewed have said that transgender individuals should have the same rights as everyone else. A few, however, have voiced reservations about minors transitioning and the use of bathrooms. But by and large, there is no “worry” that has turned up in any interview about transgender rights writ large.
In another claim that the author doesn't substantiate, Ungar-Sargon argues that “[workers] felt that the devaluation of working-class jobs was tied to the lax border policy we’ve had over the last forty years.” No doubt she cites folks who say that the U.S. shouldn’t have an open border and needs regulation, but there’s little to no evidence that individuals believe immigrants are to blame for all of their economic woes. Instead, and once again, this appears to be a narrative that Ungar-Sargon, for whatever reason, wants to advance.
Thereafter depicting the working class as somewhat bigoted and conservative, she begins to provide some suggestions as to how politicians and the government might assist working-class people. While some suggestions make sense, including universal health care and higher wages, she once again bandies the argument that working-class folks are threatened by immigrants and would like to see tighter restrictions at the border. In addition, she argues that immigration threatens jobs performed by Black individuals – an argument similar to what Trump articulated in his presidential debate with Joe Biden and received much criticism for.
In the end, Ungar-Sargon seems to pick and choose quotes to seemingly fit a predetermined narrative she had already sought to find. In some instances, there are not even quotes to support her arguments, such as involving transgender rights. Granted she’s not writing as an academic, she is still assuredly familiar with standards for research. This is a major error. Instead of coming with a predetermined story, you collect data and see where the chips fall. Yet, there is no sense of methods, interviewee selection, or anything of the sort. In fact, I don’t think we’re ever told how many folks she interviewed – just that she traveled around the country for a year, whatever that means.
More damning though is that her main thesis regarding exploitation and alienation is completely undermined by many of the quotes she uses throughout her text. Instead of defying the Marxist claims of exploitation and alienation, the workers she encounters actually articulate how they are in fact exploited and alienated in their work-lives.
Ungar-Sargon might self-describe as a Marxist in her interviews and media spots, but it appears more like a gimmick than anything else. Conservative news outlets are routinely looking for critics from within academia to denounce the institution. For instance, after a recent academic job market candidate denounced academia on Twitter/X and said that his race (White) detracted from his ability to obtain a history professorship in 2024, cultural warriors like Christopher Rufo swooped in to promote his story. The individual, however, declined to take part. All of this is to say, conservative media love these types – those who can say ‘Academia is rotten and I see the conservative light now.’
Ungar-Sargon plies a similar gimmick: deploying Marxist identification to say that the conservatives are the real champions of the working class. Given the lack of union support for the GOP and their incessant catering to corporations, this claim is only laughable. What’s even more agitating though is the fact that Ungar-Sargon lacks any serious understanding of the Marxist concept of exploitation and how to recognize it.
Marxists have long critiqued both the GOP and the Democrats for their abandonment of working-class interests. That isn’t new. But Ungar-Sargon lacks any familiarity with these critiques or anyone who has leveled them. Her rise and her gimmick are indeed fascinating, but only from the angle of absurdism.