Part of why I wrote my book The Age of Insecurity was to get at some of the economic dynamics now being weaponized against some parts of the socialist left. Yes, “middle class" (hard to define), professionals, and even affluent folks are in DSA. That’s good! 

That means they see where their true interests lie. Growing numbers of people who have some or even a significant amount of wealth or privilege (again, hard to define) are realizing that there are plenty of ways that the current system isn’t serving them.

For one, the bottom can always fall out. Even those with apparent financial stability can have their lives derailed by a climate disaster, job loss, a health emergency, or a financial crisis. Ascending the professional ranks hardly guarantees you can afford to rest.

The upside is that this pervasive insecurity offers the basis for solidarity. This is why I think the lens of insecurity is useful. Unlike inequality, insecurity is more than a binary of haves and have-nots. Its universality reveals the degree to which unnecessary anxiety and suffering is widespread.

Where inequality encourages us to look up and down, to note extremes of indigence and opulence, insecurity encourages us to look sideways and recognize potentially powerful commonalities.

If inequality can be captured in statistics, insecurity requires talking about feelings: the shame when a debt collector calls, the foreboding when you think about future job prospects or retirement, the dread that comes with the climate crisis.

When I first got into activism, I was deeply in debt, and never thought I’d ever have a net worth of zero. Now I’m in a different financial situation, and I continue to organize for economic transformation because I’d rather fight for a world where everyone can breath than one where we all have to scramble and hoard to improve the odds of living with some modicum of dignity as the underlying crises go unaddressed. The rightwing media is mad because lots of people, including some full blown class traitors, agree.

(You can listen to the lectures the book is based on for free here: cbc.ca/radiointeractive…)