Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic friction that exists between the rich and the poor. In the political and economic philosophies of Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, class struggle is a central point and a practical means for effecting radical socio-political changes for the social majority, known as the working class.

Mike Savage noted back in 2016 that economic shifts started to pose challenges to understanding how social classes are changing more broadly. The shifts—especially the wealthy elites pulling away from the majority of middle- and low-income earners—seem to be shaping world events. There is a strong anti-elite feeling across developed nations, and it’s not difficult to see why. 

Before we dive further into these topics, we must touch upon a very important aspect of the current world, and that is the trade war. According to Investopedia, a trade war happens when one country retaliates against another by raising import tariffs or placing other restrictions on the other country’s imports.

Despite Donald Trump’s claim that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” neoliberal economists generally believe that it is a poor policy choice, as they restrict, rather than liberalize, trade. As argued by Ka Zeng and Wei Liang, the effect of trade wars is uneven and complex. 

New trade barriers imposed by the initiator of trade wars will protect or even create jobs in specific industries, but other related downstream sectors will lose due to the higher costs associated with their imported parts and intermediate goods. In addition to creating winners and losers at the domestic level, trade wars will also have an impact on the rest of the countries that are not directly involved in them.

What is it that drives class wars? A common answer is taxation and a seeming lack of fairness. Polls show that most voters across the political spectrum support higher taxes on the rich, with about 80% of Americans saying they are frustrated that very wealthy people and corporations don’t seem to be paying their fair share of taxes, according to the Pew Research Center.

And yet, for whatever reason, it seems like an impossibility. A lot of the wealth that we are talking about is in the form of private business wealth, and therefore, there’s not a readily available market value for this form of wealth on which a wealth tax might be based. 

Dirk Krueger—Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences and professor of economics—argues that if you then impose a wealth tax on this form of wealth, the owners of these businesses might take all kinds of actions to artificially lower the value of this form of wealth.

Furthermore, Jim Powell argued that class warfare is a mortal enemy of economic growth and jobs. At the very least, class warfare means “progressive” taxation—higher tax rates on investors and entrepreneurs, eventually reaching confiscatory levels. 

Whatever tax revenue is realized means less money available for private employers to hire people and less money for consumers to buy things. He continues to say that pay is a matter of supply and demand, meaning that whilst progressive taxation can make the rich poorer, it makes the poor poorer, too. 

So what should be focused on? The first priority should be to ensure that taxes are indeed raised to finance the infrastructure spending plans and to maximize the share of spending that is in fact an investment into infrastructure for the future. “The biggest potential injustice I see is leaving our kids with a rotten, overheated planet and a lot of government debt to pay for the spending programs discussed now,” discussed experts on Penn Today. 

It seems like we’re all in this together, and yet we’re very much apart. If taxing the rich is not the way forward, then what is, as people that are living paycheck to paycheck have very little to grasp onto. I suppose another revolution is inevitable one day or another, but we shall have to live forth to see it. 

Dear readers, as you continue scrolling through this list, make sure you’re upvoting your favorites and leaving your opinions in the comments below. I wish you the best of luck in this chaotic world in which we live and a very Merry Christmas!