“Identity politics” is economic policy

Abstract

In the wake of the November 2024 US election, several commentators have suggested that the US Democratic Party abandon its commitment to so-called “identity politics,” which they identify as elitist, condescending, and divisive. They argue that rather than focusing on these “cultural” issues, progressives should prioritize economic concerns. Yet identity politics, at a fundamental level, is driven, and dominated, by economic concerns. Growing bodies of social science evidence make increasingly clear how identity politics—in terms of ensuring equal rights for minorities and women in the workplace and in the world and in terms of affirmative action to ensure equity of opportunity—is good economic policy. Opposition to identity politics is often built not by the culturally and ethnically diverse working class who benefit but by lower-ability economic elites who feel that their advantage is under threat. By making it harder for such entrenched elites to retain power, affirmative action may actually improve both the quality of individuals promoted in an ostensibly meritocratic system and overall economic outcomes.