Frustrated expectations. On the grammar of workers’ political consciousness

Abstract

This paper maps forms of everyday social critique among German production workers. From in-depth interviews with manual workers in industry, crafts and construction, it reconstructs seven typical repertoires of workers’ critique pertaining to the justice dimensions of redistribution, symbolic recognition and political representation. The everyday social critique of workers elucidates central forms of political consciousness developed by dominated groups under the conditions of a demobilised class society. This refers to a situation in which class relations remain formative for objective positions and everyday experience, but cultural expressions of collective class identity and political channels of representation have become fragmented or are entirely lacking. Taking up theorisations by Axel Honneth, the article shows that the core of workers’ critique under these circumstances lies in a sense of injustice attentive to transgressions of implicit moral economies. This approach allows for an understanding of workers’ political orientations that is more comprehensive and nuanced than that afforded by an exclusive focus on radical right tendencies among the working class.