Working-class intellectuals: Challenging the dominant political and economic consensus

Drawing on Marx’s claim that ‘[t]he ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas’ this editorial explores how the values and norms of the rich and powerful continue to circulate in contemporary society. It analyses the legitimisation of the neo-liberal political, cultural and economic hegemonic constellation of individualism, competition, compliance and the postmodern rejection of a complex but foundational totality. Arguing that an understanding of how subjectivity and structure exist in a mutual relationship makes possible challenges to a whole range of practices presently responsible for dispositions amenable to incorporation into the present unequal anti-democratic order: an order that demands the denigration, silencing and effective erasure of the concerns and experiences of the working class in order to function.