Identity Politics from Marxist Perspective and the Three Phases of New Social Movement (Essay Sample)

Identity and Capitalism
Name
Institution
Course Code: Course Title
Professor
Date of submission
Identity and Capitalism
Identity Politics from Marxist Perspective
According to the Marxist perspective, identity politics emerged due to the consolidation of capitalism and the resultant change in social relations in the latter twentieth century. Then, the re-engineering of capitalism in the form of globalization brought a restructuring of social relations and political ideologies along identitarian lines instead of the existing class lines (Moran, 2014). In addition, Marxist analysts highlight that the incorporation of social democratic politics and trade unions coupled with the repression of the cold war shifted people’s ideas from class to identity issues. For instance, in the United States, capitalists deliberately suppressed left-wing politics by stamping out institutions and parties associated with socialists or communists. According to Moran (2014), the criminalization of labor movements led to a complete capitulation of the economy.
Elsewhere in the world, workers continually organized in labor movements, but in a cold war manner which involved aligning themselves with the Western political and ideological goals. Later, labor movements were incorporated into capitalist economies, weakening the language of class politics (Moran, 2014). These accounts led to the demise of class