Class, Race, and Gender: Challenging the Injuries and Divisions of Capitalism

Class, Race, and Gender: Challenging the Injuries and Divisions of Capitalism is for those who want to understand the underlying connections among today’s social justice movements.

Bringing forth the basic operations of capitalist economies, it reveals what is driving many of today’s most urgent and vexing problems: the common origins of the inequalities of income, wealth, and power; environmental devastation; militarism; racism and white supremacy; patriarchy and male chauvinism; periodic economic crises; and the cultural conflicts that are tearing at US life.

Michael Zweig illuminates all propositions with specific examples from US history, from the first settlement of the New World to current life, including his own lived experiences as an activist, educator, and organizer over the past six decades. As such, the book is an urgently needed resource for activists and organizers seeking structural and moral transformation of life in the US. Building on his analysis, Zweig also presents strategies for political action in electoral and movement-building work.

Praise

“…Michael Zweig has produced an important educational resource for young labor, racial justice, and environmental activists by providing a clearly written, well documented account of the economic, political, and historical forces driving social events. His explanation of the interrelationships of class and race is especially welcome.”
—Bill Fletcher, Jr., past president, TransAfrica; former education director of the AFL-CIO; consultant to union and racial justice strategic campaigns; co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and A New Path Toward Social Justice

“A new wave of activists against inequality, racism, patriarchy, environmental destruction, and homophobia is arising in America. But when mainstream economics informs these struggles, the cupboard is often bare, the issues seen, if at all, as exceptions. Michael Zweig presents the problems as parts of a whole that recognizes the centrality of the productive system and the reality of social class. Folks across the progressive spectrum should read this book.”
—Everett Ehrlich, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs from 1994 to 1997

“This deep and rich study challenges us to understand how only radical liberation and solidarity can achieve a truly just future.”
—Sara Nelson, President, Association of Flight Attendants

About the Contributors

Michael Zweig, emeritus professor of economics and founding director of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. His past books include Religion and Economic Justice; The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret; and What's Class Got to Do with It? American Society in the Twenty-First Century. From 2005 to 2006, he served as executive producer of the documentary Meeting Face to Face: The Iraq-U.S. Labor Solidarity Tour. In 2009 he wrote, produced, and directed the film Why Are We in Afghanistan? which won the Working Class Studies Association Studs Terkel Award for media and journalism. In 2014 he received their award for lifetime contributions to the field of working-class studies.

Rev. William J. Barber II was elected president of the local NAACP youth council in 1978 at the age of 15. He then enrolled at North Carolina Central University and became student government president at age 19. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science from NCCU, cum laude, in 1985; a Master of Divinity degree from Duke University in 1989; and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Drew University, with a concentration in public policy and pastoral care, in 2003. He is the author of We Are Called to Be a Movement, Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing and The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear. He is national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.

See and hear author interviews, book reviews, and other news on the Michael Zweig’s page HERE