The Class Struggle Poised between Marxism and Populism

Abstract

The Marxian class struggle is often misunderstood as exclusively the struggle of the poor against the rich, of the humble against the powerful. It is an interpretation that is dear to populism, prisoner to a binary logic that closes its eyes to the complexity and inclines towards the celebration of poverty and want as a place of moral excellence. In Marx and Engels, however, the theory of class struggle is a general theory of social conflict. Only if it breaks away from populism can Marxism develop the ability to interpret and change the world.