Thread by @ER_Roberts_

The #BeyondGrowth #BeyondGrowth2023 has just finished, and the working class has barely been mentioned outside of discussions relating to trade unions - which highlights, yet again, that post growth/degrowth still has no idea on how to approach social class 🧵

1. Yes, trade unions are integral to mass movements and mobilisation. But what about those who aren't in trade unions, or who aren't in work? How can post growth build a movement amongst the most disenfranchised and alienated, which those outside of unions are?

2. There is also a tendency to refer to the global North's 'working class' with no distinction between class experiences by country.... When you say the working class, who are you referring to? There's loads of us!

3. Unless post growth/degrowth - or in fact, any radical movement starts to treat the working class as a heterogenous entity, all hopes of carving out a more prosperous life for all will fail.

4. We are not all the same. We are not all poor - and we are not all fascists either. On three separate occasions when I brought up social class the knee-jerk reaction was to talk about the far-right.

5. There is a serious, chronic lack of anecdotal research that adopts class-perspectives, and it really shows. Where were the working class voices on the panels? Where was the consideration to class in discussions pertaining to intersectionality?

6. Of course I couldn't be at every panel, and if i've missed something then that's on me. And I will be catching up on the one's I couldn't attend. Class may not be an issue for the middle class, but for the working-classes it defines everything that we do

7. And everything that we cannot do. On the flip side, i've had some truly wonderful conversations with people on the matter, and it's clear that people are sympathetic to the imbalance in representation in spaces such as these.

8. Any radical reimagination of society will fail unless the working-classes are included in discussions. And that goes beyond just speaking on behalf of us, it includes inviting working class people on panels to speak on behalf of themselves.

9. I hope that in the forthcoming conferences... or in anything (!) class will become something more than a throwaway comment. It is the elephant in the room that for some reason, people keep ignoring.

10. Yet what makes it harder to confront is that when we raise this issue, we're labelled as difficult, rude, or ungrateful. That is not the case by any means. Conversely, it's an uncomfortable truth that people have to start facing.