Does the Concept of Class struggle Make Sense in the Age of Neoliberalism?

The paper aims to investigate, in the context of the Western democracies: 1) how and to what extent the concept and forms of protest in the transition from fordism to neoliberalism have changed; 2) whether the social conflict and protests emerged since the economic crisis of 2008 could be interpreted through the re-enactment of the concept of class struggle. Furthermore, the paper identifies which forms of protest focus on questioning the hegemonic neo-capitalist model -that has been defined as nouvelle raison du monde by Dardot and Laval in 2009-, and which are ancillary instead. The hypothesis is that while in the past the concept of class struggle was associated with the radical opposition between two ideologies and two worldviews, now the protest is largely subsumed within the neoliberal paradigm: people do not challenges the social-political-economic model but rather claims a full inclusion in its frame. Even the economic crisis of the last decade, which eroded the economic and ethical paradigm of the middle class, has brought out forms of protest aimed paradoxically to the defense and the restoration of that paradigm, while the protests that criticize the hegemonic model remain marginal and barely visible. Therefore, the questions are: “which form of conflicts cases are today evocated by the term of “class struggle”? And even before: which “classes”? With which purpose the protests take place? We argue that in the neoliberal society is possible to distinguish three large forms of protest: two that are systemic to middle class (focused on claiming the maintenance or expansion of a status within the hegemonic frame; directed on demanding inclusion in the hegemonic frame), one anti-systemic (the only ones that counter the hegemonic frame and imagine instances antithetical on the economic, social and the political model).