Resisting the Grievance Industrial Complex
27th April 2024
It is often hard to remember, when so much of the modern Left seems lost to various forms of identitarian madness, that there is a form of leftwing politics that seeks to strengthen the common life of ordinary people, seeing the decency and stability of such a life as a thing of nobility to be sought. Rakib Ehsan’s recently published book, Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong About Ethnic Minorities, is a reminder of a certain idea of English left-wing politics, one that celebrates a covenantal form of life of people lived in rooted communities, joining together in resistance to economic forces that would uproot the bonds of mutual obligation, loyalty, and reciprocity that enable a decent life for those not at the pinnacle of economic fortune.