“It is a cruel irony that the more time one spends in leftist activism, the more depressed and helpless one will get. It is only when one spends time outside the moralizing and careerism of leftist circles — among normal, decent, often apolitical people — that one feels optimistic about human nature again.”
—Dan Evans
In this episode, I got to talk with Dan Evans, the author of A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie.
You maybe heard us both talk on The Popular Show a few months back, and I was really glad to get to talk with him again. Dan is a brilliant thinker, and one of an increasingly dwindling stock of old-school socialists who still looks at the material conditions and class situations within capitalism.
Dan’s book explains quite well the situation that many are in: university-educated but downwardly-mobile, in precarious situations (no wealth and no property), yet nevertheless somehow certain they have risen above the working class. It also explains why so much of “the left” is run by people who’ve never done a day of manual work in their lives, and why most of the working class thinks “the left” is utterly out of touch with reality.
Most episodes of The Re/al/ign are paywalled for two weeks from their release, but I’ve decided to make this one free immediately.
You can listen to the episode above (or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and elsewhere) or watch the entire episode (no paywall this time) below.
Dan’s book can be gotten either at the publisher’s website or through its Penguin Random House page.
You can also read my review of his book here.
In the conversation, Dan mentioned several books. Those are:
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