Written by: Morgan Delva

Edited by: Abigail Francis

A common assertion within online anti-capitalist spaces is that ‘culture war’ narratives in political discourse and the media are getting tiresome. This fact can be linked to the long-held belief among leftists that these narratives, typically mobilizing divisive rhetoric regarding identity politics, actively hamper and distract from the development of class consciousness among the working class. Thus, it should come as no surprise that leftists have attempted to shift the online culture war discourse. A way in which this has manifested is through the use of simple slogans that aim to center economic redistribution as the primary issue of concern for ‘regular people’.

A popular example of a slogan with this purpose is “no war but class war,” which various groups have utilized to send the message that the category of class is the primary measure of one’s societal position, and that identity politics should take a backseat to material concerns in the process of fighting back against capitalism. The ‘class war’ called for by the slogan involves mobilization from below, with the working class organizing to overthrow the ruling class and dismantle the capitalist structures that maintain a separation of classes in the first place. Many hold the perspective that slogans like these are effective in their simplicity and can attract working-class people to leftist movements they may otherwise have been skeptical of. However, does this perspective hold water?

Are we Fighting the Wrong Wars?

The use of “no war but class war” as a slogan implies that the wars people are currently fighting and/or want to fight are ineffective. The most obvious of the wars implicitly dismissed by this slogan is the aforementioned ‘culture war’. This distinction seems to disavow identity politics entirely, which can be a fatal mistake for a movement consisting of people whose lived experience differs from members of the same social class due to intersecting identities and layers of oppression. Despite its importance when considering people’s societal positions, economic status alone is not the unilateral definer of social status. As much as class can help approximate one’s material conditions and lived experience, the reality is simply that a Black woman and a white man with the same low-end income cannot be considered the same. For instance, Black women’s lived experience resisting the many systemic intersections between racism and misogyny, such as those in the health and education sectors, is unique and separates their position in society from that of a white man with similar material conditions. Various forms of identity overlap with class, but ignoring them for the sake of centering class implies that they are either all the same or that the latter matters more than the former. 

Anti-Intellectualism and Liberal Universalism

Simplicity is effective, but sacrificing an in-depth understanding of the many moving parts within the working-class movements for said simplicity is not conducive to their long-term health. Rather, it is an intellectual shortcut. If the goal of a Marxist revolutionary movement is to achieve class consciousness in the hopes of dismantling capitalist structures of oppression, dismissing key elements of these structures to build unity efficiently has the opposite long-term effect. When attempting to develop a unifying slogan, leftist movements ought to contend with the reality that prioritizing digestibility holds the power to ostracize those on the farthest margins of society. In the long term, a slogan like “no war but class war” can be undone by its universalism in ways similar to the very forms of empty liberal discourse preaching equality (such as the Canadian government’s historically toothless ‘multicultural’ rhetoric and policies) that anti-capitalist movements critique. By sidelining the many possible factors that can lead to people being oppressed other than the category of class, “no war but class war” winds up dismissing how capitalism can facilitate multi-layered intersections between different forms of oppression. Thus, (whether intentionally or not) the slogan promotes the assumption that the abolition of the material forms of oppression created by capitalism will, by proxy, eliminate other key mechanisms of subjugation. These oversimplifications can limit working-class movements’ ability to truly represent the communities that have historically been at the forefront ¹of transformative, radical, and military action against oppressive structures. 

So, What Now?

My intention is not to downplay the importance of building a sense of unity by promoting class solidarity. Rather, I simply aim to warn against the use of short-cuts to do so, especially when said short-cuts can build anti-intellectualism and permit a movement’s members to ignore key forms of inequality other than class. If the goal of leftist movements is to generate class consciousness on a scale large enough to truly threaten the existence of capitalist systems of oppression through concrete action, then these movements ought not to invalidate the experiences of their most marginalized members. Rather than dismissing non-class stratifications, leftist communities should focus on drawing in members through means similar to those they plan to educate them with once they become a part of the movement. This means that, while universalism can be effective for palatable slogans, for it not to have adverse effects on the long-term health of a leftist movement, the form of universalism employed must be inclusionary in nature. Thus, a path forward for the online left and its attempts to attract new members to a revolutionary movement should indeed involve strategies like the use of digestible universalist slogans as an entry point. However, that universalism should come as a result of different intersecting forms of oppression being included rather than at their expense.

References

Gore, Dayo F., Jeanne Theoharis, and Komozi Woodard. Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle. NYU Press, 2009. 

Guastella, Dustin. “We Need a Class War, Not a Culture War.” Jacobin. May 25, 2020. https://jacobin.com/2020/05/we-need-a-class-war-not-a-cultural-war#:~:text=But%20fortunately%20for%20us%2C%20left,of%20American%20democratic%20political%20practice. 

Lewis, Williams, Peppers, and Gadson. “Applying intersectionality to explore the relations between gendered racism and health among Black women.” Journal of Counseling Psychology 64, no. 5 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000231. 

McNeil, Daniel. “Even Canadians find it a bit boring: a report on the banality of multiculturalism.” Canadian Journal of Communication 46, no. 3 (September 9, 2021): 403–29. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2021v46n3a4031. 

Leftcom. “No War but the Class War,” July 26, 2020. https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2018-08-17/no-war-but-the-class-war. 

“Good Leftist Critiques of Identity Politics/”Wokeism”? : R/CriticalTheory,” n.d. https://www.reddit.com/r/CriticalTheory/comments/1h7l2qk/good_leftist_critiques_of_identity_politicswokeism/. 

ibcom.org. “‘No War but the Class War’. Not a Very Useful Slogan,” n.d. https://libcom.org/article/no-war-class-war-not-very-useful-slogan. 

Seuferle, Justus. “How The Right Hijacked the Working Class for Culture Wars.” Social Europe, August 14, 2025. https://www.socialeurope.eu/how-the-right-hijacked-the-working-class-for-culture-wars#:~:text=What%20to%20do?,make%20that%20clear%20once%20more. 

Svv33tPotat. “‘Culture War’ Rhetoric : R/Anarchism,” n.d. https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/1j693q4/culture_war_rhetoric/

1. Theoharis Jeanne, et al, Want to Start a Revolution?
   Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle (NYU Press, 2009), 49.
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