Working-class knowledge as political struggle: Exclusion, legitimacy and resistance under neo-liberalism

Drawing on Marxist theory, this editorial argues that the exclusion of the working class from the means of production is paralleled by its systematic exclusion from the production of legitimate knowledge. Under neo-liberalism, institutions including universities, the media and cultural industries continue to function not as neutral spheres of inquiry but as mechanisms that reproduce class hierarchies, privileging forms of knowledge that sustain capitalist social relations while marginalizing knowledge grounded in working-class experience. This exclusion is structural, enforced through professional-managerial control over epistemic legitimacy, institutional access and modes of dissemination. The editorial goes on to suggest that the contributions within this issue position working-class knowledge as a site of political struggle, asserting its epistemic authority and its capacity to challenge dominant capitalist frameworks of knowledge production.